Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing since beta, and I can honestly say I rarely ever see engineer’s when pve’ing or when dungeon’ing, why doesn’t anybody play them? are they really so bad, and if so why is this?
I remember post launch there were lots of them around doing dungeons etc, but now they seem almost extinct..

are there some severe imbalance issues or something vs other classes? if so what are these? why are they so unpopular?

I ask because they have always interested me as a class, though mine is only level 20 something and so far it’s not really bad, though not so great in melee vs multiple mobs.

also, (off topic) is there any point of an engineer getting a legendary weapon if most (or maybe all?) of their most powerful attacks are from summoned weapons? (FF, nades etc..)

I play mine all the time (PvE exclusive). They are not going to be the class of choice for Dungeon farmers, so that’s why they are not seen “much” in dungeons. Anet has put out stats that only 40% of the player base have ever finished ANY dungeon (even the story mode), so the dungeons are not a good litmus test of where general players use a class.

I think the major issues with the use of the Engineer are it’s non-fantasy roots (it’s not really “swords & sorcery” enough for the majority of fantasy based players). Also, it is a rather complex class that requires a bit of work to play well. I’ve also heard comments that it’s very limited weapon selection is an immediate turn off (this is obviously coming from players that have never tried the class and don’t realize the diversity of game-play available via weapon kits).

Just a few thoughts….but I DON’T think the class is in anyway imbalanced, broken or under-powered.

For me the biggest imbalance is that a lot of other classes’ traits compliment their build where as engineer’s traits define their build.

Engineers lose so much flexibility through this, which is crazy seeing as on the surface they seem the most flexible class due to the amount of kits & skills.

The lack of a decent pve elite also doesn’t help.

I pretty much agree with Grimm’s assessment, I think the issue is for those “elite” dungeon runners they find it hard to put a engi in a spot on the team, since most of them run all zerker melee, every job that is needed for that type of team comp can be covered using warrior (dps vuln/might stacking and banners), guardian (sustained dps reflections/might stacking condi removal and all other kinds of boons), ranger (dps spotter/frost spirit), thief (extreme single target dps), and sometimes mes if they need timewarp. People read the forums and think oh these guys do it this way so it’s the only way it can be done, couple that with the higher learning curve and play requirements needed to make engi shine compared to any of those classes and it makes it a difficult choice for many. Engi is certainly capable of putting out as much damage as any other class, but the problem from a standpoint as far as dungeon runs go they really don’t bring anything unique to the table that can’t be done by one of those other classes, maybe crowd control is engineer’s strong suit but since bosses have defiant stacks and the zerker or bust crowd kills things so quickly that cc becomes more or less a moot issue.

pve caters to berserker gear classes with projectile reflect utilities. seeing as how the damage for berserker engi builds pales in comparison to warriors, thieves, etc, and our projectile reflect is terrible, people have made warrior/mesmer alts to do pve. however you’ll still find me on my engi in pve because conforming to some nerdy elitist mentality bothers me and i do just fine.

Most Engineers i’ve met while clearing dungeons sucked, and that’s the sole reason i don’t like to pug Engineers.

Anyways, I have no idea where this myth that engi doesn’t do damage comes from, i have both Guard and Engi in zerk gear and to be honest the damage ins’t that different, while the guardian provides the party with aegis, protection, stability and some might my engineer provides might, fury (ok, rng ): ), some defensive boon (either protection or regeneration), and around 15~20 vulnerability stacks on bosses (which is the main selling point for bringing engineers around, IMO).
Finally, the only thing that bugs me about my engi is the RNG factor while throwing pots, i’m not a fan of unreliable stuff.

Edit @ Ellesee:
You’re not supposed to bring engineers to totally replace a guardian, reflect wise (the main problem of our anti projectile defense is the long cooldown (46s traited into toolbelt recharge rate if i am not mistaken)), but you might as well replace a warrior with one without much if any problems.

Oxxy.7068:

Most Engineers i’ve met while clearing dungeons sucked, and that’s the sole reason i don’t like to pug Engineers.

Anyways, I have no idea where this myth that engi doesn’t do damage comes from, i have both Guard and Engi in zerk gear and to be honest the damage ins’t that different, while the guardian provides the party with aegis, protection, stability and some might my engineer provides might, fury (ok, rng ): ), some defensive boon (either protection or regeneration), and around 15~20 vulnerability stacks on bosses (which is the main selling point for bringing engineers around, IMO).
Finally, the only thing that bugs me about my engi is the RNG factor while throwing pots, i’m not a fan of unreliable stuff.

Edit @ Ellesee:
You’re not supposed to bring engineers to totally replace a guardian, reflect wise (the main problem of our anti projectile defense is the long cooldown (46s traited into toolbelt recharge rate if i am not mistaken)), but you might as well replace a warrior with one without much if any problems.

I would replace a second warrior with a engi any day of the week, but those banners from warrior, really do increase group dps considerably, same with the spotter/frost spirit combo on ranger, It just seems like a hard fit to put a engi in any spot if we are talking “ideal” group composition because the type of utility they bring as you said is either rng or lacks in things like reflects and they don’t bring any group damage buffs besides might and vuln which can be covered by the other combinations of classes.

I dunno but tbh I prefer engineer over any heavy armor class as we can give stuff other classes can’t that easily.
We’ve got a HUGE asset of combo fiels and finishers. What’s got the warrior? One..on bow(which noone runs…quiete a shame actually as it is the only weapon I find interesting on the warrior aside from hammer).
The guardian? Well mostly light and two fire(of which one would not be taken usually).
Not only do we have great combo fields but a huge array of finishers(not too many but still quiete a bit). Basicly every turret is a blast finisher. Rocket boots for example will never get of my toolbar as it has so much utility..blast finisher+getaway+easy burn=win.
I especially think our napalm skill on the flamethrower is one of our strongest fields we’ve got. Got a thief with SB in your party? Let him stack might with your field and if you’re like me who also runs around with the bomb kit you’ll have even more opportunities to create fields helpful for your team.

But overall I think they should help us engineers define a role. I’m just the little asura running around like a maniac throwing bombs. I do help with my fields and do deal quiete some damage but I could do better if we needed more then just damage in dungeons.

@ShadowPuppet
Uh good catch, i totally meant second warrior, lol. And… yeah if we’re talking about ideal group composition it is kind of hard to fit an engi, i will agree with that, i will also agree our class can be tweaked here and there (still looking at you, RNG boons), but for overall PvE with pugs or friends any engi traited and built correctly and not spamming turrets will do just fine.

Oxxy.7068:

Uh good catch, i totally meant second warrior, lol. And… yeah if we’re talking about ideal group composition it is kind of hard to fit a engi, i will agree with that, i will also agree our class can be tweaked here and there (still looking at you, RNG boons), but for overall PvE with pugs or friends any engi traited and built correctly and not spamming turrets will do just fine.

Agreed, and it is also my favorite class to play by a mile! I have done pretty much all there is to do in this game except the really high fractals (they just don’t interest me that much) with my engi and the playstyle for the class is just awesome, I like the high apm of running multiple kits. As others have stated in other threads, engi really is in a superb state of balance especially in pvp, they just need to give us a tiny nudge to give the “elite” teams a reason to want to bring a engi in dungeons heh.

Oxxy.7068:

Finally, the only thing that bugs me about my engi is the RNG factor while throwing pots, i’m not a fan of unreliable stuff.

This is exactly what put me off playing eng shortly after launch, and why I never use staff on my mesmer.

Making some core abilities as “it could do this, or that.. it may help u, might not, good luck, lols!” of course this isn’t going to allow you to build to any style of play as you can’t guarantee your boons will compliment what you are doing, due to the RNG, and therefore makes it hard (as you are all saying) to place where the engineer’s mail role is in groups, what he can bring that other classes can’t already do better.

If you have a class which doesn’t bring any benefit to the group over another class, it makes that class redundant, doesn’t it?

Maybe they need to change engineer’s somewhat, remove this silly RNG and decide (it’s been a year since launch, enough time to decide surely..) what the role of the Engineer should be in group play.

Very skilled players like some random guy I saw once youtube who has many followers, solo’ing champion mobs in wvw, shows you that they “can” be good, but are definitely not an easy class to pickup and play.

I think a good QoL change (aside from vanishing with rng) is to turn every throw elixir toolbelt skill into mists (just like the healing turret toolbelt skill), we could buff our group and ourselves on the fly without much of a hassle and it would be easier to keep DPSing, we might lose some clutch ally cloaking or stability at range on PvP but then again it’s all RNG based and most of time the cloak activates in a ally he’ll just break out of stealth by attacking something the next second.

Vashoom.8512:

Maybe they need to change engineer’s somewhat, remove this silly RNG and decide (it’s been a year since launch, enough time to decide surely..) what the role of the Engineer should be in group play.

the engineer is dps. just like the other 4 people in your party. the engi’s strength is hybrid power/condi dps which is very apparent in pvp but nobody wants condi classes in pve. blame anet’s dungeon design for that not engi class design.
also rng boons aren’t that big of a deal. potions are used mainly for might stacks and condi removal. the boons they give are just random bonuses. nobody is going to run multiple potions without going into 409 + hgh and if you are you’re just gimping yourself.

Engineers are far and away the weakest profession in just about every way. Don’t bother with the ‘no profession is weaker then another’ crap, engineer is a jack of all trades master of none, and it’s mechanics require more skill to get what you can out of it. It can do many roles, but to play it on a generally acceptable level requires well more experience, skill, and insight than it would to play another class, and even then a pro engineer is almost always trumped by a pro of another class doing the same role.

Around January i made the ultimatum that if i couldn’t WvW on my engineer, i wouldn’t WvW. My guild really didn’t like that. Now i’m guildless and i haven’t touched WvW in months.

ellesee.8297:

pve caters to berserker gear classes with projectile reflect utilities. seeing as how the damage for berserker engi builds pales in comparison to warriors, thieves, etc

This is completely untrue. The maximum damage output of an engineer in full group buffs is just as high as a warrior or guardian. The number of ways that you can screw up and not deal that maximum damage is far greater on the engineer though.

Average damage across the full spectrum of skill levels certainly makes the engineer a less desirable choice when dealing with strangers, but in the hands of a good player, they are every bit as effective as the alternatives.

if you could share your secrets with me on how my engi can do 15-30k damage every 6 seconds i would love that because i think i could be a better player.

Measuring DPS based on Hundred Blades is bad and you should feel bad.

so you are telling me that engineers and warriors do the same amount of damage? are we going to have this debate?

I’m telling you that measuring dps based on Hundred blades alone is wrong.

100b damage dps is calculated to the amount of damage done over 11.5 seconds, 3.5 for the channel time + 8 second cooldown, their axe auto is much better for sustained dps than 100b, but they are meant to fulfill two entirely different roles. Having said that I present you this bomb sd build example, keep in mind that every aa after the first has no aftercast and is on a .5 interval, the blunderbuss, jumpshot prybar and the toolbelt skills can be repeated every 15 seconds (if you want to save them all for a burst combo to use at one time or faster if used individually) in the same time it takes for the 100b channel with being able to add a bob every other rotation (provided the mobs won’t be knocked back). So yes engi is capable of 15-30k every 6 seconds quite easily just usin bomb aa. Also since the bomb aa is actually a 240 (need to check the actual radius on this) radius full aoe versus cleave, mob positioning is a bit less of a concern. If you like here are some included skill coefficients
Rifle
R1=0.650
R2=0.000
R3 Close=1.600
R3 Long=1.000
R4=1.000
R5-Leap 0.900
R5-Land 1.800

Tool Kit
TK1-a = 0.80
TK1-b = 1.75
TK3 = 2.00
TK (Toolbelt) = 0.75

Bomb Kit
BK1 = 1.25
BK2 = 0.20
BK3 = 0.50
BK (Toolbelt) = 1.70

So few people are really proficient with the high apm needed to make engi competitive and then complain that it’s damage is subpar compared to every other class. Yes it takes work, no it’s not a faceroll class and yes since it take such a higher level of “skill” to get all your damage on target since you are pressing so many more buttons the chance to mess up is fairly significant, but it is doable.

I play my engineer in PvE almost exclusively, and love it. That said I do have a theory as to why we don’t see a lot of each other. Basically it is just a lack of understanding of what engineers are by the players. Yes those of us who main engineers can do great things, but the average player comes to the profession and leaves it shortly after they realize that a ‘zerker warrior can out DPS just about all of our possible builds. Honestly the issue is that engineers aren’t the best at anything, so all the players who feel like they have to be the best they can be at any given goal, role, or play style abandon us almost instantly. There is even the misconception that elementalists are more versatile than us (false).

All I can say is that I see engineers as a hardcore hybrid profession. If you try to focus on any one thing you’re simply going to suffer, and really even the much loved grenaders are under-performing in terms of DPS. So you really have to build yourself knowing that you won’t have the best of this or that, and instead focus on making a competent build that can do multiple things. At least that is how I see it. It is all subjective, but I define a build as viable or not based on how useful you are playing it, and I’ve found that in PvE –be it events or dungeons- there is always something I can bring to the party to help out. Yeah I may not be the best at damage, or the greatest support (although I think I am in the top tier of condition removal) but I can always do something to help out, and no one complains. Yeah some jerk ‘zerker in COF may have unkind things to say about me, but after I drag his worthless hide off the dirt a few times he tends to quiet down.

@Oxxy “Most Engineers i’ve met while clearing dungeons sucked, and that’s the sole reason i don’t like to pug Engineers.”

What do you feel makes a “good” engineer?

I have an 80 engineer and my highest alt is 25. I do not know much about other classes and I feel that hurts me from excelling as an engineer myself. I feel I have finally gotten a grasp for combo’s and mostly understand how to stack might for my group and things like that. I have primarily played with a grenade build which is versatile for pve. My highest fractal is 29 since I am waiting to earn my next AR piece. I try my best to put up reflect walls, aoe heals, aoe condition removal while constantly dps’ing.

I know i’m not the best, I know I have a long way to go. I just feel it’s hard to evaluate myself or know what it is i’m missing. Some people seem to think if you dont stack 25 might you’re a bad engineer. I’ve gotten over that, specially since with fractals you’re not always stacked to even get all the benefits.

Anyhow, I love my engineer and I want to get better. There are just so many perceptions on what an engineer is supposed to do and I have yet to realize that myself

roya.5809:

@Oxxy “Most Engineers i’ve met while clearing dungeons sucked, and that’s the sole reason i don’t like to pug Engineers.”

What do you feel makes a “good” engineer?

I have an 80 engineer and my highest alt is 25. I do not know much about other classes and I feel that hurts me from excelling as an engineer myself. I feel I have finally gotten a grasp for combo’s and mostly understand how to stack might for my group and things like that. I have primarily played with a grenade build which is versatile for pve. My highest fractal is 29 since I am waiting to earn my next AR piece. I try my best to put up reflect walls, aoe heals, aoe condition removal while constantly dps’ing.

I know i’m not the best, I know I have a long way to go. I just feel it’s hard to evaluate myself or know what it is i’m missing. Some people seem to think if you dont stack 25 might you’re a bad engineer. I’ve gotten over that, specially since with fractals you’re not always stacked to even get all the benefits.

Anyhow, I love my engineer and I want to get better. There are just so many perceptions on what an engineer is supposed to do and I have yet to realize that myself

A good engineer is the same thing as a good <insert class here>, it is the guy who knows what to do and when to do it, the kind of guy who doesn’t spam the nades #5 & #3 just because it is off cd and so on. While i’m on my guardian i actually appreciate when they cleanse stuff off the party while my shouts are on cd, or when they respec their utilities depending on encouter just like you do (i had a pug to pop projectile protection on the ice elementals and big golem at CoE, proudest moment of my life). So as you can see, a good engi is the same as any other class.

And… to be totally honest with you i started playing GW2 IDK, about 3 months ago and right now i’m probably in the same boat as you, i’m facing the dilemma of HGH + 406 or Perma Vigor plus critical damage with Invigorating Speed and Speedy kits while playing with my friends (meaning i wouldn’t have to stack might as much as i do now). Long history short we seem to play alike and i wish you the best of luck on your engineering improvement plans. :P

Among the classes I play its my second favorite to warrior for dungeons. In most cases condi damage and all with HGH I can sit back with nades and make most runs simple. DPS is generally the name of the game but some runs just need players who can keep up the DPS while not being one shot.

Most of the time you do not have to carry the party except in fractals. The only thing i ever cared about is knowing the run .So no matter what class i run I rather just make thee run simple for me and for those around me. In truth PvE is rather simple once you know the tactics (cheats) most players use to clear content. I have yet to find content where engineer didn’t do just fine. I have been playing for 9 months and have run every class except guardian and necro through dungeon content. Truth is there isn’t much advantage in running one class or another beside DPS even then that is so so.

Here is the honest truth. Really doesn’t matter what class you run unless your’e trying to shave a min or two of the run. As long as everybody knows the run and brings some form of DPS it is all good.

Most fights boil down to this. Spam skills/run rotation x. Dodge the big hugely telegraphed skills. Profit.