Guild Wars 2

Hello engineer forums,

I find myself perplexed as I prepare for HoT, especially concernig how to gear my engineer. A little backstory first:

When gw2 first started engineers were, well, trash. I perservered and kept playing the engineer because I love this class’ utility. We are the jack of all trades and master of none. I left gw2 for nearly two years for school and now that I am back (for almost a month) I find myself confused by the state of engineers.

I read on the forums that engineers and relevants are top tier dps when properly geared. However we also have incredible raid utility such as the healing turret (best healing spell in the game), elixir gun, elixirs, and now gyros that can revive allies.

I truly enjoy healing in this game, especially with the engineer. It takes a great amount of skill to predict the movement of your allies, predict the bosses actions, reaction to burst damage and drop a perfect heal or elixir gun 5. I love removing conditions and swapping them with boons. I enjoy providing fields to stack might and area healing. I really enjoy using pistol/shield with the skill to provide retaliation to allies.

However, being top tier DPS class I could be helping the raid more by focusing on dps. Instead I wonder if I would am filling the spot of a class that provides better healing/boons.

So, for the PvE-centric engineer that I am, how do I best utilize my engineer?