Guild Wars 2

Currently level 50, and I am not expecting to be even remotely “good” until 60, but I was wondering how I will fare in WvW.

I have a guardian who tends to be able to dominate, so I am curious what my role as an engie will be.

I’ve got a level 45 flamethrower/grenade engy and I do fine in WvW. The grenades are useful in sieges due to the long range, and in skirmishes the flamethrower nets me lots of bags, its extremely good at tagging enemies.

The tankcat build seems to work extremely well in WvW as well drawing attention and surviving.

They are modesly useful right now, and will become much more so after the Wintersday patch if we get what we’re promised.

Things great for engineer WvW include:

1. Engineers can be pretty good tanks. Post-patch, variations of the Tankcat build with the flamethrower will be extremely interesting. Between that and the supply crate ultimate, they are great vangaurds in skirmishes. They can make a weak spot in an enemy formation and push them back.
2. Engineers are useful against wall defenders. They can spam grenades to make ramparts awkward, and they can (carefully and with practice) use the toolkit magnet to yank defenders off the walls into caltrops fields.
3. Engineers are good supply runners. Their perma-swift trick costs very little in terms of trait and skill investment.
4. Engineers can trivially have access to a massive number of blast finishers, which in team play can let you stack might, retaliation, or (with help) do a sudden burst of area healing.
5. Engineers can have a lot of knockbacks in some builds. This can be helpful in some situations (like narrow ledges or saving someone from a stomp).

What engineers are not very good at right now is damage (what type? all types. Mediocre single, burst, aoe, and conditions) and solo roaming. So for now it’s a very group oriented class.

They arnt that vailable as before. The problem are the HUGE amount of mesmers, thieves and guardians. All this “reflect” abbillities are killing the class, if you blow up your mates because some button2 spammers accidently found his oped roflstorm while your grenade barrage is on the way, you will know what i mean.

As a matter of fact, engi is the only class that can become dangerous to his own allies with grenades. For example, even if i manage to stun the mesmer to use grenade barrage, he can instantly use “feedback” because it has no casttime. This ruins the engineer for me. In higher brackets there are almost 80% Thieves/Mesmers and every decent one hast projectile reflection. Im very experienced with engi and had alot of success but atm it becomes unplayable for me, you just have no answers against oped reflection. I created a mesmer which abuses the hell out of it, i just laugh at rangers/engis they cant even touch me.

If you like running with the zerg and just aoeing the living kitten out of everybody(very good aoe I might add) and blast people in the face with a flamethrower, then engineer is for you.

Their good in WvW, but their ok to mediocre in spvp.

Dont know but here in T3 every single encounter has “wall of reflection”, “feedback” and “roflstorm” so be carefull with your grenades before you blow up your own mates.

Yes Wvw seems to be all about reflections nowdays. (even engi like tankcat) and personally i feel its bs gaming. Still nades are good u cant pop the reflection on all the time. (idk about top servers if they have so many of em to chain it) New update will put sigils on work. Maybe flamer will become usefull?

KirinDave.6451:

What engineers are not very good at right now is damage (what type? all types. Mediocre single, burst, aoe, and conditions) and solo roaming. So for now it’s a very group oriented class.

I disagree with this. Engineer is my class of choice for solo wvw roaming. It’s fast, it can disengage from nearly any fight and just escape, it can apply a large number of boons on self, permanent might, fury and retaliation on demand etc. I can kill anything 1v1 with it, in fact, I don’t think I’ve lost more than a dozen 1v1s in wvw and I’m at 14k kills, most of them achieved as a roamer.

No one ever knows what to expect from an engineer in wvw, that’s also a great advantage.

Maskaganda.2043:

KirinDave.6451:

What engineers are not very good at right now is damage (what type? all types. Mediocre single, burst, aoe, and conditions) and solo roaming. So for now it’s a very group oriented class.

I disagree with this. Engineer is my class of choice for solo wvw roaming. It’s fast, it can disengage from nearly any fight and just escape, it can apply a large number of boons on self, permanent might, fury and retaliation on demand etc. I can kill anything 1v1 with it, in fact, I don’t think I’ve lost more than a dozen 1v1s in wvw and I’m at 14k kills, most of them achieved as a roamer.

No one ever knows what to expect from an engineer in wvw, that’s also a great advantage.

Youre right but there are classes you cant beat as engineer like well played mesmers.
I have also 14k kills 13K of them with the engineer and i run solo or with a group of max 5 most of the time. I won almost all 1v1 i had except against well played mesmers.

You also have a mesmer you should know what i mean, its ridicoulus. I couldnt beat my mesmer with my engi and i have just yellow accessiores on the mesmer and play engi since bwe1.

Kontrolle.3514:

Maskaganda.2043:

KirinDave.6451:

What engineers are not very good at right now is damage (what type? all types. Mediocre single, burst, aoe, and conditions) and solo roaming. So for now it’s a very group oriented class.

I disagree with this. Engineer is my class of choice for solo wvw roaming. It’s fast, it can disengage from nearly any fight and just escape, it can apply a large number of boons on self, permanent might, fury and retaliation on demand etc. I can kill anything 1v1 with it, in fact, I don’t think I’ve lost more than a dozen 1v1s in wvw and I’m at 14k kills, most of them achieved as a roamer.

No one ever knows what to expect from an engineer in wvw, that’s also a great advantage.

Youre right but there are classes you cant beat as engineer like well played mesmers.
I have also 14k kills 13K of them with the engineer and i run solo or with a group of max 5 most of the time. I won almost all 1v1 i had except against well played mesmers.

You also have a mesmer you should know what i mean, its ridicoulus. I couldnt beat my mesmer with my engi and i have just yellow accessiores on the mesmer and play engi since bwe1.

I honestly don’t have that much trouble with mesmers, sure if they use feedback and mirror they can be a big hassle but I dont find them particularly difficult in wvw.

I have much harder times with heavy condition damage necros, there’s just no way I can compete with them (I’m running an high amount of condition damage too) when they have more hp, can stack crazy amounts of conditions and turn the ones I throw at them into boons or extra healing. Luckily, I haven’t found many of these around in wvw.

I guess its all down to your build.

yeah. When i started my memser alt, Feedback kindof blew my mind. Made me hate my engineer.
Then add in temporal curtain, 1200 ranged aoe pull. And reflect.
Warder, zerker..
the line of sight nerf to phanstasm have brought the mesmer down in power greatly.
Used to be able to massacre seige with them. And now, my mesmer is much much weaker at doing that. while my engineer still excels at it.
(feedback, null field, blink/portal on swap, timewarp) a glamour mesmer. confuse, blind on those skills in addition to their base use. Eth fields like crazy for confuse.
Just a ton of group utility that my engineer was lacking. As strong as portals are… timewarp on golems.

The point blank melee nature of most of the engineer skills is the problem. You say, engi has knockbacks. uh.. rifle, big ol bomb, ram. These are all melee. Past the point of usefullness in wvw really. (deployable turrets needs to be fixed. THAT would be very effective in wvw, with accellerant) Throw mine is probably better then I give credit for.

Took much projectiles. yeah. reflect is a deathtrap for us. Feedback isn’t so bad. Daggerstorm I hate. since they can move and its duration is very long. feedback, just means stop attacking.

Carpet bombing. no one comes close to the raw aoe damage of an engineer. Just constant g1 and g2 spam wrecks stacks, seige, etc.
Vs doors. I do 60×3, or 180 every .8s. that is 1350 over 6s, compared to a rams 9k.

Vul stacking kills buffed guild lords at camps/towers. And grenades stack vul better then anyone.

Alch is pretty great for groups.
Toss U. 75% chance for a block or reflect wall. 25% chance for a stealth,which is lame. But still a high chance of providing a nice aoe block for you, golems yak, etc.
Can also be a light, smoke or eth field. although, too unreliable to plan for.
Haste on yourself I find meh. Lose nearly as much time, activating the haste, as it buffs your damage..
Toss R. even nerfed to 120 its still by far the most powerful, an shortest CD res. (also, isn’t the tooltip wrong, it wasn’t actually changed at all?)
Ranged res, cond removal, and self res. Its amazing.
Toss S. Stealth or stability is kindof meh. as its not reliable.
Toss H. vigor, prot, heal. 2 of them are great for yaks, allies. especially with 409.
Might stacking in general on players.
B, H, and rifle, grenade is pretty effective at escorting and protecting yaks/golems.

Elixir S and grenades.
If an engineer wants to get into a seiged tower/fort, you can not stop him.
Between S, and shields, dodge rolls, etc. they can get in.
Once inside, they can man catas, or just plain kill rams by aoeing the gate with grenades, themselves. This should not be ignored.

Let me put it this way: I regularly try to bring alts into WvW (Mesmer, Warr, Guard, Ele), and I always end up swapping back to my engineer after ~30 minutes. Permaswiftness + 1500 range AoE + Pull + Support functions = perfect WvW character, in my opinion. Keep in mind that I run with 10-20 people regularly, so YMMV if you’re wanting to play a solo roamer.

Also, I’m in T3 as well, and I maybe get 10 grenade tosses a night reflected at me. I guess I’m paying attention or my server’s the one supplying all the reflects.

Permaswiftness is not that great. Most profs can attain that. And/or have run speed buffs that stack with it.

Also, runes of the centaur.

I mean, you say, peramswiftness+1500 pull. and support.

Uh.. mesmer? runes of centaur on mesmer with 15s heal vs 25s engi heal.
Means AOE perma-swiftness. which is WAY, way way better then self only.
Temporal curtain. aoe Swiftness, eth field. 1500 AOE pull, that can be directed left, right, back forward. Can be traited for reflect.
And again, timewarp,, feedback, portal, null field, veil, eth fields, and a few light fields.

Uh.. mesmer? runes of centaur on mesmer with 15s heal vs 25s engi heal.
Means AOE perma-swiftness. which is WAY, way way better then self only.
Temporal curtain. aoe Swiftness, eth field. 1500 AOE pull, that can be directed left, right, back forward. Can be traited for reflect.
And again, timewarp,, feedback, portal, null field, veil, eth fields, and a few light fields.I’ll admit I missed my engi, while leveling my mesmer. Although, I am not sure how much of that is just my engi being in full exotics…

Casia, if you put 6/6 centaur runes on an engineer, then equip medkit, you achieve perma GROUP swiftness because swapping in and out of your medkit counts as a ‘use’ as far as the runes go. Probably a bug, will probably get removed at one point, but right now Engineers are the only class that I know of that can achieve perma group swiftness without triggering a cooldown.

Casia.4281:

Uh.. mesmer? runes of centaur on mesmer with 15s heal vs
25s engi heal.

Wat. I…okay. We’re talking about potential here, right? Not stupid builds where you add gimmick runes but then don’t use the skill to take advantage of them? Medkit does what you just said, but better. Might as well say the Mesmer’s going to use the Mantra if we’re going to pick bad healing skills.

Casia.4281:

Means AOE perma-swiftness. which is WAY, way way better then self only.

See above.

Casia.4281:

Temporal curtain. aoe Swiftness, eth field. 1500 AOE pull, that can be directed left, right, back forward. Can be traited for reflect.
And again, timewarp,, feedback, portal, null field, veil, eth fields, and a few light fields.

I know. I have an 80 exotic mesmer, so I know what the skills are and what they do. And I know you just listed the same things repeatedly. You can do a field build, and then that’s your usefulness. Guess what! Engineer can do fields, too, and instead of having multiple copies of the same field (4 eth, 2 light in a full mesmer field build), you can gain access to every single Engineer field. By the way, Engineers have access to the most unique field types of any class. Mesmers get Ethereal and Light. Engineers get Fire, Ice, Light, Poison, Smoke, and Water. An Engineer field build can run all of them at the same time and carry 3/4 finisher types (1 leap, 2 blasts, projectile AA) vs the Mesmer’s possible 2 leaps in the field build.

Then, Mesmer’s can switch out one skill to get their portal utility, and Engineers can swap out two if they decide they’re going to siege a keep (grenades + TK pull) or one if they want to run (Turret Water Field -> Medkit). The difference is…what happens when a Mesmer decides to siege? He…fields. More fields. When his long-cooldown utilities are burned, he can then…auto attack the door with his staff. Fantastic.

Don’t get me wrong: the Mesmer class has a brilliant theme, but their obstruction bugs and recently weakened phantasms make them frustratingly weak in WvW sieges, which is where most of my time in WvW is spent.

EDIT: I accidentally an “en”

Sure there are good things engineers can do. but what you specifically stated, mesmers kindof do better. the pull, support. I did misread the aoe, and pull as 1. Ill give engineers the aoe hat. Particularly with the need for line of sight on phantasms.

Eth fields come naturally to a mesmer, they don’t have to go out of their way to get them. And most are huge. And frankly, eth fields are pretty strong.

Mesmers have 2 leap options, 2 whirls, and several projectiles.
Greatsword gives 100% projectile on mirror blade, and zerker whirls. (aoe confuse)
Warden on focus also whirls.

Phantasms on doors is pretty strong.
Timewarp on golem is crazy strong.
feedback on doors. temp curtain on doors. or walls to aoe pull off.

you said support, which seems pretty silly that you could complain then, that you can’t offensively seige on them. well yeah, support… Mesmers skills and utility are much much more team oriented.

Clone stacking on doors, etc to reduce incoming damage. aoe is 5 capped. An illusion build is pretty lol that way. Regen/etc on phantasms. disenchanter, and mirrors, etc. just spam illusions, and soak up the aoe. careful to not soak up timewarp, and other buffs though.

Casia.4281:

Sure there are good things engineers can do. but what you specifically stated, mesmers kindof do better. the pull, support. I did misread the aoe, and pull as 1. Ill give engineers the aoe hat. Particularly with the need for line of sight on phantasms.

Eth fields come naturally to a mesmer, they don’t have to go out of their way to get them. And most are huge. And frankly, eth fields are pretty strong.

Mesmers have 2 leap options, 2 whirls, and several projectiles.
Greatsword gives 100% projectile on mirror blade, and zerker whirls. (aoe confuse)
Warden on focus also whirls.

Phantasms on doors is pretty strong.
Timewarp on golem is crazy strong.
feedback on doors. temp curtain on doors. or walls to aoe pull off.

you said support, which seems pretty silly that you could complain then, that you can’t offensively seige on them. well yeah, support… Mesmers skills and utility are much much more team oriented.

Clone stacking on doors, etc to reduce incoming damage. aoe is 5 capped. An illusion build is pretty lol that way. Regen/etc on phantasms. disenchanter, and mirrors, etc. just spam illusions, and soak up the aoe. careful to not soak up timewarp, and other buffs though.

I was talking about the number of finishers you could get in a single field-spamming build. That’s why I didn’t really count the GS (which used to be the bestest weapon ever), since you need staff and focus. Totally spaced the Whirling Warden.

Mesmers can pull off the whole “moment of truth” thing more often than Engineers with Portal and Time Warp, but while their high points are high, they’re usually infrequent. Portal and Time Warp don’t stack very well, though, so any Mesmers after the first in a group have reduced utility. Every group should have one, that’s for sure.

For an even flow of support on a ground battle or a wall, I feel more consistently useful as an Engineer, and more spiky as a Mesmer (leading to more “Ha, did you see that?!” moments), but I just get so bored on the mesmer between spikes. Can’t hit players on a wall, can’t shatter effectively during sieges, can’t run supplies as quickly without Centaur runes (I still see this as a gimmick). Your best bet as a Mesmer is to control ranged siege and hop off to throw your fields every 30-45 seconds.

If I’m on the Engineer, I’m more active. If I’m on a wall, I’m healing allies with turrets and bandaids, rezzing with invulnerabilities, and (usually) absolutely wrecking the people on the ground with grenades. Especially if one of them gets knocked down and everyone runs to help him up. If I’m on the ground, I’m denying defenders spots on the wall, healing allies, dropping fields, running supplies, yanking off walls, and then denying those same people re-entry to the keep long enough for them to die a horrible death. It’s pretty constant interaction.

At the end of the day, teams should have both Mesmers and Engineers to be effective. I just prefer the constant flow of activity an Engineer provides over the more drastic highs and lows of the Mesmer.

I should also point out, if they fix deployable turrets. Engie usefullness in wvw will go up quite a bit. Blast combos at targeted locations. Flamethrowers HUGE smoke field, at target. ranged aoe knockbacks.
Spawning turrets on top of walls. (which really, is why its “bugged” I think. I’m pretty sure its disabled on purpose)

Im only just leveling my engie so I can’t really comment on how viable an engie is but I have a full exotic Mesmer so I can say that the Mesmer is great in solo/small groups, they have great survivability and can rival a thiefs burst, they also have some really good support skills with stealth, portal, null field and time warp but time warp has a huge cool down and portals are great but only useful sometimes and I’m starting to see people learning to counter the portal bombs, once you have used these skills you are stuck auto attacking because phantasms are insta killed in zergs or sieges especially now that they have a 2 second delay. You say phantasms are great against doors but that’s only true if there is nobody defending, asoon as you get defenders phantasms are insta killed, you can throw time warp once then if you cant find some siege to man again you are stuck being a taxi service or spamming auto attack.

Like someone said you should always have a couple mesmers around but they seem to be a dime a dozen these days thats why I’m leveling an engie.

thats true enough, ha.
I was in a pretty big/prolific wvw guild. They just moved to seafarer’s rest and I decided I would rather stay on SoS.
Anyway. there was only 1 other active engineer at this point in the game. Me leaving only leaves 1 still playing. Not 1 engi alt. With 50-90 people playing any given night.
5-15 thieves, guardians, elem, mesmers. EVERYONE has a mesmer alt.

I can also say, not one strat revolves around engineers.
Obviously, portals/timewarp for golems, and general play.
Elem-swirling winds protecting seige, heals.
Guardian walls.
thieves are dominate yak/camp harassers.

Phantasms on doors. yeah. the melee ones die of course to aoe on the wall. Wardens reflect though is great. Ranged ones will live though, if you know its coming. Warlock, duelist, disenchanter. also have short recasts for the most part.

Useful? They aren’t top tier useful because they don’t bring anything unique. Mesmers bring portals. Elementalists bring siege blocking. That’s top tier WvW useful.

Second tier useful would go to classes that provide large area buffs or large area damage that can alter a battle. Guardian shouts and rolls. Warrior banners. Necro Well of Corruption. Mesmer Feedback and Guardian Wall of Reflection. Hammer professions.

Can Engineers tank? They can be made to be pretty tanky, but they become more one-dimensional than the top tier tanks, Guardians and Warriors, who can tank while buffing or healing or giving strong dps.

Can they dps close up? Not anywhere near as well as Thieves or Warriors.

Can they dps at range? Grenades seem to be pretty good at this. Probably tied with Elementalists for best range AoEs. But Elementalists can hit things on the wall that Engineers can’t. And for solo-dps, you’re never going to be able to unload like a Warrior.

Can they heal? Yes. But your group would probably benefit more from a healing Guardian or Elementalist.

Can they apply conditions? To one target, pistol is okay at this. But your group would be better served by a Necro that can dot up everyone.

How easy are they to kill when cornered? They aren’t in the top here. No amazing blinks. No way to grant themselves stability. No easy access to stealth. (Few Engineers seem to take Cloaking Device.) Nothing particularly useful in their down state, like an Elementalist who can Vapor Form to safety.

So if you want to tank, you’re better off with a Warrior or Guardian. If you want ranged dps, you’re better off with an Elementalist because he can also block siege and hit places you can’t. If you want general WvW utility, you’re better off with a Mesmer. If you want to heal, you’re better off with a Guardian or Elementalist. If you want to put people on the ground quickly, you’re better off with a Thief or Warrior.

But if you like carpal tunnel, then by all means, spam Grenades.

i assume that your talking large scale events, WvW and the likes when you say guardians and elementalists are the better healers, Destroyer. Because dungeon-wise and usual close combat-wise these classes arent even remotely close be as good healers as engineers. The only thing that could compete with them in a matter of healing would be warriors for theyre burst heals, guardians arent so good at it either, theyre buffers/healers, not amazing healers.