Guild Wars 2

Greetings and thanks for reading.

I am a new player to the game, trying a Charr Engineer. I have a 59 Ranger but wanted something a bit different. To put it bluntly I am having massive problems with survivability.

At level 19 I was “making it” in the starting zone. However, between adds aggroing on me from clip distance, two veterans and trash all swarming me, I died a bit. But made it through.

The next zone is worse. (More Ascalonians). I have Trebuchets hitting me from point blank range, two and three cannons targeting me from distance, and adds respawning almost as fast as I kill them.

I find an underground cistern where the 21 Veteran Mage is doing 500 damage every 3-4 seconds. So if I don’t kill him (and the things that spawn with him) in under 20 seconds, I’m dead again.

Either I need to switch back from Bombs to Grenades, or upgrade (if possible) my healing turret, or something. Because, quite frankly, I die more in 20 minutes on my Engineer than I do in 20 levels on my Ranger.

My gear is all level 17 (I used the Krytan skin) and my weapon is level 14. I will upgrade my weapon (rifle) and see if that helps my Bomb DPS. (Again, new to the mechanics).

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Updated-Engineer-Leveling-Guide/first#post2970327

Although it sounds like you just need help with basic game mechanics. Double tap your movement key to dodge. This will negate all damage thrown at you during the dodge. Just pull a couple mobs at a time. Start out in rifle just autoattack ing, then swap to bomb kit. Try another races zone. I remember my first charr was a tad more difficult than my others because thyre zone has lots of things like that. Try out the human zones. Med kits probably my favorite heal for leveling, since you can drop all the bandages before a big encounter. Also remember with medkit your main heal is your f1 key.

What stats are you focusing on in your gear? When I was leveling, I found it best to have all defensive stats on my armor at low levels, while stacking offensive stats on my weapons and jewelry.

As well, it sounds to me as if you aggro-ing to many mobs at once. One thing that you need to learn in any MMO is how to pull mobs so that they are in groups that you can handle. That simply comes with practice. As well, Carpboy mentioned, dodging is the key to damage mitigation.

Mobility is key. Learn to dodge, especially the attacks with obvious windups. Generally, the longer the windup, the more it’s gonna hurt. Stay outa red circles.

As for bombs, I’ve never been very good with them. Their fuse delay & melee range make movement difficult. I prefer flamethrower (FT) or grenades. You can trait into FT at a much earlier level too, making it comparatively stronger than ’nades at lvl 40.

Take note of your abilities in addition to damage. FT has knockback & aoe blind, which will keep you alive. Your shield has a block and knockback. Your rifle has a knockback. Your pistol has a bouncing blind. You’ve got gadgets like Rocket Boots that can blast you outta trouble. Learn what skills get you out of those “oh crap” moments and use em.

When levelling I found range to be best. I did not use bombs….

I preferred Rifle even though it may not have the best damage, it has good CC. Grenades or Flamethrower for when you get into more than 1 mob at a time or during events. The choice for me was more about playstyle and not having to spam 1 with a targetting radial. I often used offensive turrets and net turret, for more CC. With Rifle and Net turret you have a lot of CC.

For this type of levelling setup I would focus on Power, up to you on if you want Vitality, Toughness or Precision.