Guild Wars 2

I’m looking for a class that, simply put, doesn’t have a huge number of buttons to push. Does engineer work? Do they have to swap weapons often? Thanks!

boy engi is the class with most buttons to push is all i can tell ya you have to use F1-4+ your 1-5 keys and the 6-9 to change kits like every 4-10 seconds, ah yes each kit changes your 1-5 keys adding up More buttons to push.

Yeah, Engineer is NOT the one you want. <.<; Can’t really offer any alternatives, unfortunately. The only other class I’ve really used much is Ranger. Definitely less attention needed, but I’m sure there are better options.

least buttons = axe&warhorn warrior with full sigils. happy? bye

Haha, yes, in general warrior would be the way to go. They are simple enough and you can do pretty well with just a few skills. They’re also interesting enough to make you think about what traits and weapons you want, etc. In other words, extremely quick to learn, but can still take a long time to truly master.

Edit: engineers would be a very bad choice if you’re looking to not have to give your fingers a workout. Sorry, it’s just the way the profession is.

Rezzet.3614:

boy engi is the class with most buttons to push is all i can tell ya you have to use F1-4+ your 1-5 keys and the 6-9 to change kits like every 4-10 seconds, ah yes each kit changes your 1-5 keys adding up More buttons to push.

Agreed.

The only one to come close is ele, but with the number of hand-targeted aoes eng MUST work with (because their survival is balanced around it), you will be using more buttons.

For some of what engineer does in a simpler package, try either P/P thief or rifle warrior.

Thanks for the help. Orion the Cursed, you sound angry!

Warriors are actually extremely hard to play well in tPvP, I’d recommend guardian as a first class. Pretty easy to play with some nice utilities to mess around with in PvE and PvP alike

Guardian all the way. Simple and super effective.

Is there a guardian spec that doesn’t have to swap weapons too often??

Victros.8154:

Thanks for the help. Orion the Cursed, you sound angry!

Nah, just bored and skeptical. Maybe you are new to RPGs. It always goes without saying Warriors/Fighters with lots of passive skills are easiest class to pick up. Its kinda weird to come to a unique class thread and ask for a faceroll experience.

In this case the class/config i recommended can steamroll 95% of the content just with as few as 1, 2, F1, & 4 buttons. In comparison my engineer needs to press F1>(hold w)>6>1>2>3>9 just to heal.

Victros.8154:

Is there a guardian spec that doesn’t have to swap weapons too often??

Theres a general and guardian thread u know

greatswords are the most versatile and effective.

I don’t want to faceroll. I just have a minor neurological condition that makes management of a bunch of buttons difficult.

plasmacutter.2709:

Rezzet.3614:

boy engi is the class with most buttons to push is all i can tell ya you have to use F1-4+ your 1-5 keys and the 6-9 to change kits like every 4-10 seconds, ah yes each kit changes your 1-5 keys adding up More buttons to push.

Agreed.

The only one to come close is ele, but with the number of hand-targeted aoes eng MUST work with (because their survival is balanced around it), you will be using more buttons.

I think Ele is just one step more complicated, as you can do a low-button engineer like P/P Elixir survivalists.

The ele always has their four elements though, and with most their weapon setups have quite a bit of AoE as well.

Engineer players are kind of cranky sometimes

If you’re planning on doing PvP tournaments, yes, guardians would be great. But it sounds to me like you’re looking for a warrior, probably axe or maybe greatsword. You won’t really need to switch weapons ever if you don’t want to.

Victros.8154:

I don’t want to faceroll. I just have a minor neurological condition that makes management of a bunch of buttons difficult.

Then stay away from elementalist and engineers.

Necromancers arent hard to use but are not rewarding atm.

Thieves and mesmers often need you to have good on the fly reaction so if you dont think u can handle them…

Warriors are the easiest to pick up and most preferable in pve. Kill stuff b4 they kill u. A bit boring imo.

So i would go with rangers or guardians. It would depend on whether you prefer to play a tough character or agile a character. Both can be easy and still fun

The guys posting on this have the right of it. Engineers are tough to learn without having some finger dexterity and a reliable knowledge of the keyboard. Between my mouse and keyboard I have rearranged control bindings and have made things much easier on myself. Honestly, other than dungeons you could get away with the eng in pve without too much stress on yourself unless you just had to use grenades. Once you get to pvp and wvw though you will be tying your fingers in knots if you don’t have a good setup going on. Post 80 eng probably wouldn’t be too rewarding for you either since most people begin settling into a routine of WvW, dungeons, and PvP which will be more difficult for you than just exploratory pve.

I would pick a guardian over warrior but that is just my personal preference. Warrior’s are beasts and they run a rampage through pve without hindrance. Warriors also get access to the rifle which is nice if you prefer ranged combat. You can still get above average dps out of a guardian and maintain high survivability but provide good support. Ranged is somewhat lacking in guardians. Good luck!

Victros.8154:

I don’t want to faceroll. I just have a minor neurological condition that makes management of a bunch of buttons difficult.

Engineer – lots of buttons because of kits
Elementalist – lots of buttons because of attunements
Necromancer – constant weapon swapping (if you want to be any good)
Thief – lots of fast button pressing
Ranger – regular weapon swapping + pet swapping and command buttons
Guardian – occasional need to swap weapons + 4 buttons for boons
Warrior – occasional need to swap weapons + 1 button for charged ability

Guardian is more useful than warrior in PvP situations. That’s the only reason I would recommend guardian; so you can do well in WvW. You can do well in WvW on a warrior but it requires a lot of weapon swapping and quick button pushes. Hope that helps.

Victros.8154:

I’m looking for a class that, simply put, doesn’t have a huge number of buttons to push. Does engineer work? Do they have to swap weapons often? Thanks!

If you use kits, you will have buttons. Each kit replaces your weapons skills, with 5 new ones indicative to the kit.

If you wish to run gadgets, you will have an easy play style and be able to control the battlefield well.

If you use elixirs you have great self buffs, the ability to have nice stun break and condition removal, and buff your party to some extent.

The problem with a lot of the previous post is that they got stale on certain notions. They mislead you and tell you that you need a lot of button and must use kits. Be wary of such ideology.

The class is not hard to learn. None of them are. You can take any class with in 5 minutes of creation and go to the mist and learn the basics of any class, doing this with all classes would help you miles more then asking here.

Victros.8154:

I’m looking for a class that, simply put, doesn’t have a huge number of buttons to push. Does engineer work? Do they have to swap weapons often? Thanks!

Yeah engies are one of two classes that require that you are a piano savant to actually play properly. There’s a bazillion buttons to press just to function in normal combat and they ALL have to be perfect, there is no room for error thanks to nerfs and not enough vitality or defense without nerfing further.

Play a ranger… and just auto-attack with the short bow.
Or there’s always the full signet warrior but you may have to occasionally dodge.
Ranger wins for the easiest class to PVE with IMO.

coglin.1496:

Victros.8154:

I’m looking for a class that, simply put, doesn’t have a huge number of buttons to push. Does engineer work? Do they have to swap weapons often? Thanks!

If you use kits, you will have buttons. Each kit replaces your weapons skills, with 5 new ones indicative to the kit.

If you wish to run gadgets, you will have an easy play style and be able to control the battlefield well.

If you use elixirs you have great self buffs, the ability to have nice stun break and condition removal, and buff your party to some extent.

The problem with a lot of the previous post is that they got stale on certain notions. They mislead you and tell you that you need a lot of button and must use kits. Be wary of such ideology.

The class is not hard to learn. None of them are. You can take any class with in 5 minutes of creation and go to the mist and learn the basics of any class, doing this with all classes would help you miles more then asking here.

How long do you think someone would run an engineer without using kits and THAT notion not get stale. No class is hard to learn but the point of leveling it and using it in different aspects of the game is to feel competent and like you have done well with the class. The engineer simply requires more button pushing to take advantage of what makes the class unique. Would you enjoy only running gadgets and achemy to avoid button pushing? I agree that taking the class into the mists immediately to get a better idea of what the class feels like is a good idea. It still does not replace thorough gameplay in multiple situations though. What part of the mists is going to replicate dungeon play?

Hmm. About 80 levels.

I built my Engi after watching Maskaganda’s first pistols and pots video (pistol/pistol + elixer build). I played around with healing turret early on and then stuck with H. I played with rifle turret but the others had too long a cooldown and rifle got not-very-strong. By the time it took to get to <above> the build was starting to pay off and I could just play to form. (To be fair no Engi build is gonna start getting to be what it’s capable of until level 60 and gear starts getting all 3 stats.)

These days based on some number crunching I’m almost tempted to try a Rifle + Tools build but I suspect p/p + elixer just hits what I want in playstyle.

Pistol/pistol + Elixer or Rifle + Net Turret has about as low a button-push count as your are going to find. This is mostly because we can’t switch weapons and all other classes do. (We can load kits but most of our kits are amazingly meh.)

You are gonna need #[1,2] on any class and probably #[3,4] for control. Let’s be conservative and say you only use 3. You’ll want #6 for heal. At least two of your F keys will be good enough to push every now and then. At least two of your utils will also and probably your elite. Outside of an Eng you’ll want to weapon (or attunement, /wave Eles) swap. Let’s call that 4 more keys (3 weapon and ~). You’ll want to check the map and hit ‘F’ to interact with NPCs. At a minimum you are going to want to roll your face across 12-15 keys. You can get that out of pretty much any class if you don’t have high expectations so my advice would be pick the one that you think looks most fun and go with it.

If you really want to roll an engineer for w/e reason but are afraid of the complexity. You could always run around with a flamethrower and the trait juggernaut. Its a decent build in a PvE enviroment with good dmg and great survivability. Wouldn’t bother much with this spec in PvP tho.

Kai.3680:

How long do you think someone would run an engineer without using kits and THAT notion not get stale. No class is hard to learn but the point of leveling it and using it in different aspects of the game is to feel competent and like you have done well with the class. The engineer simply requires more button pushing to take advantage of what makes the class unique. Would you enjoy only running gadgets and achemy to avoid button pushing? I agree that taking the class into the mists immediately to get a better idea of what the class feels like is a good idea. It still does not replace thorough gameplay in multiple situations though. What part of the mists is going to replicate dungeon play?

Blah blah blah. Say whatever you want. Anyone trying to force the notion down poster throats that you “have” to use a kit is crap. And when it is a new player or new engineer and it is stated as it originally was, it is misinforming and counter productive. This isn’t about what does or doesn’t work optimally in your opinion. It is about misinforming folks who ask honest questions.

Example

The engineer simply requires more button pushing to take advantage of what makes the class unique.

This is absolutely not true. It is a case of you attempting to force your misinforming opinion on the OP. Kits are not required, or even remotely necessary. That is a fact. Niether is excessive button pressing.

With guesting coming, I will be happy to record myself set up a non kit build that requires minimal button meshing, or several builds for that matter. Transfer to a server in your tier, and meet you in a secluded spot on the map 1v1 and post the video here to support my point if you like.

Even if you use a kit. You have no more button mashing them any other profession with weapons swapping.

Even the devs suggest your just wrong. It has been posted here before. Comments the devs made on level of complication, learning curve, or difficulty of a profession, they had engineer well away from the top of the list. They literally listed them in order of difficulty to learn and play and engineers were not even in the most difficult half of the professions. Although I did not agree with all they had to say on that topic, it says a lot about your claims that it contradicts what the devs stated. So I hope the OP takes that into account.

I don’t want the OP to not play the engineer because of misinformation. Neither do I want them to play a class that they might not get the most out of. We likely are not going to reach an agreement on the main topic at hand and there is no point in bickering. As you suggested and I agreed going to the mists would be a great idea. We can both agree that the more engineers the better. I am flattered that you want to get me one on one and record it but I will pass.

I didn’t have an image to express how i feel when playing this toon.

I finally found one that adequately shows what it’s like hope it’s not too small for people to see.

Oh and to the people who keep saying it doesn’t take more button pushing to play an engineer, yes it does especially if you want to do what they expect us to do is use nothing but kits.

If you seriously think it doesn’t then you haven’t played a thief ranger or warrior.

tigirius.9014:

Oh and to the people who keep saying it doesn’t take more button pushing to play an engineer, yes it does especially if you want to do what they expect us to do is use nothing but kits.

They do not expect us to use “nothing but kits”. Get over yourself with the intentional misinformation, false claims, and inaccuracies. Post a link supporting “they expect us to use nothing but kits.” or just stop making the false claim will ya, its old hat, and misleading to new folks like the OP.

coglin.1496:

tigirius.9014:

Oh and to the people who keep saying it doesn’t take more button pushing to play an engineer, yes it does especially if you want to do what they expect us to do is use nothing but kits.

They do not expect us to use “nothing but kits”. Get over yourself with the intentional misinformation, false claims, and inaccuracies. Post a link supporting “they expect us to use nothing but kits.” or just stop making the false claim will ya, its old hat, and misleading to new folks like the OP.

Let’s see, two weapons, no weapon swaps, barely any damage unless you use multiple kit abilities, multiple buttons per kit, the ability to now have sigils work with kits causing them all to be nerfed across the board, it’s pretty obvious that’s what they intended. Until they fix the problem that’s how it is. Just because you don’t want to accept the truth doesn’t make people like me wrong. I’m just calling it like it is, you are perfectly free to add me to ignore but don’t act like your a moderator.

I’m just pointing out the obvious, that we have to play this class like it’s a piano for us to get the same benefits out of it that 4 buttons with a single weapon does on classes like warrior, ranger, and thief. That’s the cold hard truth.

coglin.1496:

tigirius.9014:

Oh and to the people who keep saying it doesn’t take more button pushing to play an engineer, yes it does especially if you want to do what they expect us to do is use nothing but kits.

They do not expect us to use “nothing but kits”. Get over yourself with the intentional misinformation, false claims, and inaccuracies. Post a link supporting “they expect us to use nothing but kits.” or just stop making the false claim will ya, its old hat, and misleading to new folks like the OP.

Thanks for defending the engineer profession so faithfully, but maybe this is more information than the OP wanted? Perhaps it would be better to start a new thread on the good things about the engineer, or the different non-kit builds that we have. I’m not sure it’s very beneficial to keep this conversation going in this thread. Do we really want the only dev actions in our forum to be closing threads? It’s pretty obvious that the OP is looking for a warrior/ranger for PvE.

/thread, I hope.