The Engineer is a highly versatile class. While it doesn’t have the long range capabilities of the Ranger, or the melee capabilities of the Warrior or Guardian, they are comfortable at medium ranges in most fights. They have a lot of control, and use their boons to keep themselves (and allies) alive in a fight. They can use different kits based on the situation, but this extreme versatility comes at a cost in damage on their main hand weapons.
The design philosophy above is well known to us all by now. Much has been made of the poor performance of our kits, the numerous bugs that plague our class and the needlessness of the grenade nerf. But I believe there is a far deeper issue that ties into Arenanet’s notion of our versatility. Namely, our traits. Too often, they don’t support the versatility philosophy.
One core reason for this is that kits have specific traits that improve them, often drastically. If I’m about to enter a fight where I know large amounts of ranged AoE would be useful, I could theoretically slot in the grenade kit. But without the Grenadier trait, my contribution to the upcoming fight will be paltry. Compare this to a Warrior or Guardian, who can simply equip a ranged weapon in their second slot and contribute far more to the fight.
Traits like Grenadier, HGH, Infused Bombs, and Juggernaut encourage us to use one kit or particular play style almost exclusively, and are thus anti-versatility. A great example of traits that encourage versatility are some available to the Guardian.
Altruistic Healing is a prime example. This excellent grandmaster trait heals you whenever you affect an ally with a boon. Given that no matter what you do as a Guardian, you’re going to be throwing out boons to a certain degree, this allows you extreme versatility when it comes to weapon and utility choice.
Or take Empowering Might. Nearby allies gain might whenever you critically hit. Beautiful! It doesn’t matter what weapon you slot; this little beauty will work for you. Or how about Writ of the Merciful, all symbols heal. At first this doesn’t seem so versatile, until you consider that almost every Guardian weapon has a symbol skill. So once again, no matter what you do, this will help you out.
Elementalist, my other main class aside from Engineer, has some great examples too. The most well known are Elemental Atunement, which buffs everyone around you when you attune to an element, and Evasive Arcana, which generates a spell when you dodge. Once again, these are pro-versatility traits that actually encourage you to switch attunements, and thus be more versatile.
It should be noted that the Elementalist traits are by no means perfect. For a class focused around switching atunements to suit situations and avoiding long cooldowns, too many traits are focused on one attunement only, providing benefits only to that particular element. However, their trait lines, along with the Guardian, reflect a pro-versatility philosophy far more than Engineer’s currently do.
There are exceptions for the engineer too, though they’re fewer and less useful. Kit Refinement is a nice trait as it provides something for every kit. Unfortunately, given that not every Engineer runs with kits, it’s not as pro-versatility as it could be. Elite Supplies may be a fairly poor trait power wise, but it supports any elite skill you could use (though not racial ones. I don’t believe anyone would care about this). Ironically, our minor traits are the most pro-versatility traits at our disposal, as virtually all of them, except Steel Packed Powder, provide benefits regardless of the situation. Some may perform better with particular builds, such as the “on critical” ones, but still, even if you’re running a full tank build, you’ll still be getting some crits.
The moral of all this is that Arenanet has in fact made some classes with excellent versatility. It’s just that engineer, currently, isn’t one of them. Right now we’re not much at all, which is something that must be urgently addressed.