Guild Wars 2

tl;dr: Engineer feels weak even the second time through, even with much more skill. Suggest a leveling path for me please.

I guess I’m frustrated. My first engineer to 80 was my first character to 80, and during that time I felt things were a little rough just because I was still learning the mechanics of the game and the profession. Now that I’m working on my 2nd engineer, I’m getting annoyed. Things seem to die slowly, and hit me rather hard. I’m good enough now that I hardly ever die, but the engineer feels just as weak as it did 7 months ago.

I have 3 other 80s. Leveing thief and necro in PvE was fairly painless. Mesmer spent a good amount of time in WvW, and quite effectively. The engineer is a PITA … everywhere.

Yeah, the grenade kit is still the best, followed by bomb kit even after the smoke bomb nerf. I wanted to go conditions but those kits are mostly power-based. Of course both have power and condition components, making a hybrid spec more reasonable. But it’s hard to spec hybrid when you’re level 17. P/P isn’t that fun in PvE when you have to fight 3+ mobs all the time, and for that matter neither is the Rifle. Turrets post-buff are better for sure, but it’s so darn annoying to have to pick them up after a fight, move forward, then wait. Flamethrower never has and never will have a good damage to survivability ratio, at least until Juggernaut. Elixir gun doesn’t have enough AoE. Toolkit might work with turrets after I gain several more levels, but then it’s back to “pick-up and wait”.

I wanted to level my engi mostly in WvW, both zergs and small groups. With my engineer I’m lucky to kill an ambient creature in WvW with 1 shot! I had an epic 5-minute fight with a dolyak at level 5.

Well, can someone recommend to me a leveling path (stats, traits, weapons, and kits) that will improve the experience? Perhaps something that will help me be at least slightly more than a meat shield in WvW?

Why a second Engineer? I’m not one to talk, I have 2 … but for different reasons lol.

I honestly wanted to conduct a similar experiment. My first character was my mesmer, which I despised. I came back to make another one not along ago, and I found that, now I actually knew how to play the game, the class was fun and rewarding. (However, I did lose some steam on that and wound up leveling my Elementalist instead, but still.)

I get the sinking feeling that I would not find the same true of a second engineer, particularly with the nerfing of KR and the resulting loss of survivability.

This is speaking primarily from a PVE perspective.

I deleted my 80 engineer a while ago and leveled a new (now 80 too) because of it having the wrong name. Then the next month Anet added name change >.<

Anyway, if you want to keep to WvW, you first want to be 30+. Dont go into WvW before that with an Engineer, because its kitten Complete kitten There’s no other class as weak as a lowbie Engineer and its mindnumbingly dull to play. Just PvE until then, its going to be easier for your sanity. You COULD zerg as well in WvW, but prepare to be utterly useless for anything other than XP leeching.

When you got the trait points, spec for kit swiftness and vigor on swiftness. That right there increase you survivability and WvW viability by at least a million percent. After that its just to kite, kite, kite and kite some more. Rifle is going to be considerably better in solo play before you can spec for penetrating bullets and condition damage, after that pistol/pistol become a potent combo, especially against groups.

Play static discharge / Rifle leveling up. I felt op with it: a warri leveled with me and had a hard time reaching enemies before they were dead.

Leveling in WvW can be tough in general. It would certainly be easier with a mesmer than an engineer due to inherent survivability.

Grenades are not effective until level 60, as I’m sure you know. Before unlocking the third trait tier, they will not only do only two-thirds normal direct damage but will also not inflict vulnerability, which is very important for covering damaging conditions in a condition build.

Bombs will require you to go melee, something you probably don’t want to do with a green arrow. Still a solid kit, though.

p/p or p/s becomes viable when you reach a high enough level to have condition damage and some precision on the same gear (for burn on crit). Before that, you’ll probably want to be rifle autoattacking a lot, and using net/overcharge on anyone who closes on you.

Well everyone has confirmed my suspicions, that leveling my 2nd engi is going to be a chore, and that it would be worse trying to do so in WvW. I’ll try out the PvE Tools/SD build, and if that doesn’t work for me I guess I go back to the staple explosives build. I’ll probably re-evaluate P/P when I get higher level.

I’m p/p at level 17 and having no problems in Kessex Hills, generally taking on 5-6 mobs at a time with bomb/nade kits. Extremely easy so far.

Yeah, that’s how I’m doing it. It just feels like a chore compared to the other professions I’ve leveled, and not much easier than my first engineer when I barely knew how to play the game.

Well I went rifle/power and I actually felt even weaker! But I stuck it out until I got SD (lvl 20), and now it seems good enough to move forward.

Wow, I never felt underpowered as an Engi. Even at low levels spreading conditions with P/P and FT was just too much fun. I hate grenades because of their awkward mechanic of ground targeting for #1. So I stick to my trusty pistols. And I don’t stack power, but hitting things with prybar and rocket kick and FT #2 is like-a-truck worthy. And with EG I have 4 heals (2x toolbelt + #6 + Super Elixir).

Engineer leveling (solo pve) to me was the easiest out of the Warrior and Mesmer. By a long shot. You can be absolutely reckless and pull 5-6 mobs for everything you do when you have Smoke Bomb, Flash Grenades, and Static Shot for near constant Blinds.

There is a little bit of BSing going on here, for those who are intellectually honest. Small heals are meaningless against multiple mobs because you lose the health you would gain during the heal casts. That is, unless you’re running away, which happens from time to time when you get in too deep, so I get that. I’ll give you FT #2, but better not aggro more than 3 things because you’re going to get repeatedly hit several times with FT’s short range.

Blinds are great, but they are not constant and they don’t do much damage, so while you may blind the heck out of your 5-6 mobs, when the blinds wear off you still have 5-6 near-full-health mobs to contend with. The amazing pre-nerf smoke bomb was a notable exception, but that’s a thing of the past.

Ever since I leveled a necro and thief I think I got a little spoiled. Not too much skill juggling. Then I leveled a mesmer, and that was like playing the piano if I aggroed more than 2 mobs…so I didn’t. Now that I’m back to engi again, it’s the piano all over again. I know I could go explosives…that’s what I did for my first engineer. This time I wanted to try something different.

For now I’ve settled on a Rifle-Tools/SD build using EG and TK for added utility. I’ve learned how to tackle several mobs with a decent amount of survivability, but it takes a great deal of concentration. Here’s a typical opener “rotation”:

1-F4-3-8-3-2-F3-7-2-4-F2

That’s:

Hip Shot – Surprise Shot – Blunderbuss – Tool Kit – Pry Bar – Box of Nails – Throw Wrench – Elixir Gun – Elixir F – Acid Bomb – Healing Mist

Like I said, playing the piano. All mobs at this point are below 50% health, and I’ve got to work around all the cooldowns to finish them off.

I just hit 80 on my engie, and changed my build as I went along based on what I learned and how the game changes in PVE. Early on (up to lvl 20), I ran P/P and grabbed every bit of power/cond gear I could…total GC. I grabbed EG and FT and swapped constantly to put max conditions on mobs. From 20-40, more mobs get added to events/quests, so I migrated to P/S for some added survivability, but this still wasn’t terrific as I was a slightly thicker paper bag. 40-60 I started moving towards blowing kitten up, and 60-80 I went power/toughness grenadier and that was eye-opening. At that point I could easily aggro a good number of mobs and switch between nades/bombs for blinds and AOE blast/condition goodness. Yes, spamming nade 1 gave me carpel tunnel (WT kitten devs??? Fix this already and at least give us the OPTION to auto ‘nade 1), but nothing else came close PVE for mowing down all the mobs in higher level events. Also, for tough solo fights (Vets, Champs….again this is all PVE), give the previously useless Thumper a go…..it now does it’s job at holding aggro……at least some of the time. :-/

-Thor