Guild Wars 2

I was trying to pick a new main to play, however can’t decide between Elementalist or Engineer. I like the idea of being versatile, and having a lot of stuff to do to keep me occupied. I like having to constantly switch between stuff and staying on my toes to be effective. I was wondering if someone could give me some insight on the two classes, I want the ability to play very different roles or play styles on the same character. I also want to play a class that takes quite a bit of skill/practice to be rewarding, I’d rather play something with a high skill cap than feel like pressing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 to win. I mainly play PvE, so I guess it pertains to that.

I haven’t played much with the Ele, but my main is an Engi, and being a new skill to the Guild Wars realm, it does not disappoint. It does take a lot of time and understanding to wrap your head around a strategy or two that really help you win. In lower-level and single enemy NPC PvE situations I have ways of doing the “1,2,3,4,5” method of taking out an opponent, but strategy is definitely key when working with a team or dealing with large groups of enemies. In terms of versatility, Engineers could use a little work as they are for the most part an aggressive ranged class (besides their Elixir gun, Med-kit, and Healing turret), but have many options to get used to. Turrets are good and new, as they are great for holding ground and supporting a team. What Engi’s lack in usable weapons, they gain in Weapon Kits, which, although hard to get used to at first, really do pay off once you get the hang of them. You could constantly strap on and shed Weapon Kits during a battle to constantly mold to the dynamic state of a combat sequence. My only quip (and this is pretty general for any ranged PvE char) is that it’s hard to deal a lot of damage while keeping yourself from dying. Sure, turrets can draw damage occasionally, but if you aren’t careful and get in-combat movement and dodging down, dying becomes frequent. I guess if you like practicing strategy a lot, though, maybe how Engi’s need to be constantly moving might be good for you. Hope this helps!

Haven’t played much on Ele either, but the Engineer seems to fit all of your requirements well. Engi might be better because you don’t have cooldowns on kit swapping, like you do with Ele attunement swapping. Role diversity might be a weakness for engineers.

Both classes meet your needs in different ways. Elementalists have both the highest number of weapon skills and the highest number of total skills: 20 weapon skills, a healing skill, and between 4-20 (depending on whether you use summoned weapons) extra skills through utilities. The water skills are generally quite good at healing too.

Engineers are a lot more limited that that, but their skills are generally more versatile. If you like inflicting a broad array of conditions and buffing allies, you’ll be better of with an Engi.

If it’s complexity you’re after, Eles are more demanding than engineers: to be at peak efficiency, you need to swap between elements constantly. Moving between AoE/single target/certain boss fights, also need to swap weapons occasionally, which can be a slight pain without the hotkey.

I wouldn’t say that Engis are terribly complex to play; an extra kit is basically just a (very exotic) weapon swap skill with a bonus toolbelt skill. Grenades are also very strong right now, to the point where you can come up with a fairly simple skill layout and skill rotation to max class damage. Their class mechanics may seem a bit unusual at first, but by the endgame I’d consider Engis to be simpler that Eles or Mesmers; about the same level as Necros.

Engis are getting a lot of changes next week, so it’s entirely possible that the less attractive kits will become more competitive; that would make Engis the most versatile class in the game, though their complexity would still mostly derive from choosing the right skills before entering combat. In terms of bucking traditional skill rotations, you can’t really beat an Ele.

an ele might win for 1-2-3 rotation (check the ele forums and youll see what i mean) but for sheer versatility ’geer wins. its fun being an engineer.

I have played my elementalist a lot, but my engineer is only level 63 currently, so my experience in playing an engineer is lacking.

Engineers have very active playstyle, because they (and their skills) were designed around the attunement switching. You are basically forced to play very active or your performance will be very underwhelming. This is making itchy players very happy, but on the other hand if you like less active playstyle you have problems, because you need to press keys like a madman to not be inferior to other professions. Engineer with 2-3 kits who is actively switching between them is pretty close to an elementalist.

Elementalist probably win in the number of keypresses per minute, but engineer profession is allowing player to choose slower playstyle if he likes it.

Weapons of an elementalist always include some control, healing and damage, but the main “theme” is different for each weapon. Staff is not that awesome when it comes to 1v1 in open area compared to D/D, but it shines during zerg vs zerg fights or sieges. So you need to be prepared that if you want to switch “roles”, you will be forced to switch weapons too and therefore you need to leave combat, open your hero panel, change weapons and maybe some key traits, etc. This can be pretty annoying.

Let’s say you are roaming in WvW- killing sentries, dolyaks, capping supply camps, etc. Then you see that your allies are attacking a tower and you need to switch to a staff if you want to help destryoing sieges and denying defenders the wall. If enemy zerg arrives wastly outnumbering your group and you have your staff instead of your D/D equipped, then you are not going to be happy.

Engies have less things “built-in” and they cannot provide things like aoe damage or healing unless they change their utility skills, but because of the kits and the design of their weapons they are not forced to switch weapons and by reserving one utility spot for a grenade kits you have solid ranged AoE damage at your disposal during the combat. So elementalists have a lot of flexibility for chosen “theme” (e.g. range), but they cannot be built for multiple themes like an engineer. But if you are planning to stay in the boundaries of the chosen theme, you will feel super flexibile on your elementalist.

Another difference is that elementalists have recharge time on their attunements which is making them bit less flexible that it may seem even tho their flexibility is still lot higher than a lot of other professions. The issue is that if you switch out of attunement X to attunement Y and a suddenly a situation arises for which you have some awesome skills in attunement X, you need to wait for the attunement to be available again to switch into it. This is making elementalists activate most of their skills of the attunement once they switch into it because they know they won’t be able to switch back whenever they want. It has bit of a “rotation” feeling to it. Yes, the cooldown is not that big at all, but it may be still something potential elementalist players haven’t thought about.

I wish I had more experience with an engineer, but I hope it was still helpful.

I’m in the same boat as OP. I played a thief up to 80 and didn’t really like the style anymore… Looking at Engineer, Ele, and possibly Guardian now…

My main concern is three-fold:
1) I want to be a capable and interesting solo PvE’er. (Thief boiled down to a fairly simple rotation for my reasonably resilient build….DB, DB, DB, steal, DB, DB, HS, HS, repeat x.x)
2) I want to be useful in a party…whether it be in dungeons or general PvE.
3) Like any other player….I want to survive lol. I have an affinity for sturdy characters. I tend to have a knee-jerk reaction to rush into combat, guns ablaze. I need to play something that won’t shatter while I’m reloading lol (figuratively).

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that all professions bring something to the table (and I have interests in trying out Warrior, Necro, Ranger, and Mez in the future). Currently I’m trying to establish a new ‘main’ character…something that I will want to stick with. That’s what attracts me to Ele and Eng…their extreme versatility.

Could anyone offer any insight that might sway my decision? I’m not a very “itchy” gamer, so I’m leaning more toward Eng…but I’m interested in more input before I decide.

Should prob stick with the Guardian then. All three classes are able to solo, group and survive, but the Guardian is the only one of them with decent passive survivability. Ele and Engy require a very active playstyle even when facing trivial enemies.