Guild Wars 2

I’m having a great time on my new-80 engineer, and bought my first ascended. I previously played a warrior (pve) and found it a total snorefest. Engineer is great with a lot of ways to play and lots of abilities, compared to warrior where I felt like it was “use this build, and these weapons. No deviation.”

My question is, why don’t I see more engineers? Is there something about this class most people don’t like/just can’t get past? I feel like I see a LOT of elementalists/mesmers, but almost no engineers. Is there some pitfall to the class that I don’t know about or haven’t experienced yet, or are they just a unique preference?

I asked in map chat and was told all the generic things such as “they suck”, but others said they have lowish DPS, are not good in level 50 fractals, etc. Is that true? Do you guys ever have a hard time getting into 50 fractals on your engis?

I’m hoping there’s not some horrible reason I don’t see more of them; for example, rangers are not so common since they have a bad reputation or don’t do as much damage as other classes. There’s nothing like that going on that I haven’t noticed yet, is there? I hope not, cause I’m having so much fun it’s criminal.

:D

Well… as you mentioned PvE and that’s mainly dungeons/fractals:

Here are the reasons most people don’t like engineers in their group:
- if you want dps, better take a warrior. best pve profession in game…
- if you need stealth, take a thief as their smoke field has a lower cd and is just better
- no one needs vulnerability… warriors (& thiefs) can perfectly well cap vulnerability on bosses
- if you want might stacking, take a elementalist. one will cap your group’s might at 25 stacks…
- who want’s a flame-thrower-autoattacking engineer if you can get someone useful?
- engineers are noobs on the same level as bearbow rangers: using ranged weapons when everyone knows melee is the way to go
- and why are some carrying this stupid condition weapon named elixir-gun?
- but that’s still better than their bombs, only useful for knocking bosses and stacked groups of mobs out of corners
- engineer’s should stay in pvp where they belong

(i could continue this list for days but most of time you will not be told why they instantly kicked you on joining the group via lfg-tool anyway…)

All in all: engineers can only do things another class does better, most of them are even more useless.
And if it wasn’t for elementalists (for might-stacking and fury) you wouldn’t use non-heavy armor classes in dungeons anyway, because they spend all their time lying around dead.

Sure, non of the above statements is even remotely true. But that’s what the average GW2 player will tell you. (Yes, that’s the same player who thinks 3-4 warriors, 1 guard and 0-1 elemetalist make up a good speed-running party^^).

Long story short… engineer is fun to play, strong in pve, pvp and wvw, one of the most versatile classes ever designed for a MMO and can adapt to nearly every situation. But it’s really difficult to master (and most people tried and failed playing one, so it must surely suck :-) )

Welcome to the wonderful world of GW2, where classes are judged by hearsay and facts rarely matter…

^Pretty much this.

Engineers have arguably the most difficult dps rotation to pull off in battle (assuming you’re running the meta build) and as such have quite a bit of room for error and dps loss. However, if played to perfection, engi actually has the 3rd highest personal dps (or so I’ve read), behind thief and elementalist.

It also really doesn’t help public opinion that many a would-be engineer has tried to make a pve build revolving around the flamethrower (which while cool, it’s awful for damage).

The answers you got from the people in map chat, I can almost guarantee they never tried playing an engie before making assumptions. And the only real “pitfall” is the difficulty of the dps rotation while still trying to dodge etc… (and perhaps carpal tunnel later in life due to all the keystrokes).

Ah well, I still have my non-80 mesmer to decide which one I have more fun on. But as far as I’m concerned, I’m not hopping on my warrior just to do a fractal/dungeon, especially if you guys are saying anyone who blames engi is the one at fault. Btw I am using the meta build, but of course it takes a bit of time to get used to.

It’s a matter of taste, dis-information and being lazy.
About taste:
Many people simply don’t like the steampunkish design of the class and want to play a mighty warrior / guard, an epic caster like eles (avatar-influence says hello), be the master of death (necros) or want to be the all-superior master-teef → thief.
Other just find it remotely compeling but got driven away by the complexity and high skillfloor-required to play engi properly.

about dis-information:
welp, the eople above never really played an engi, and those who tried gave up without really looking into the class. So we have a kinda bad reputation because these people who tried, failed and rerolled a warri / guard think they’ve seen all we’re capable of.

about lazy:
It’s a shame that this class is so complicate to get into, so I can’t really blame people for not trying when there are so much more less-risk / same-reward classes. On the other hand, this huge gap of not understanding how a engi works makes it sometimes far too easy for us in pvp or wvw roaming^^
The downside is that elitists will kick you straight away from their dungeon / fractal queue.

solution:
join a guild, make friends, do something awesome (like soloing a boss when everybody got killed already) and get valued for the awesome engi that you are and never bother about lfg again. works for me, should work for you as well.

^ I just can’t play the necro in this game after playing the necro in GW1 lol. They’re a shadow of their former selves, it’s like some sort of necromancer purge happened in the time gap which caused all knowledge of death magic to be lost and we had to start over again.

But anyways:

No class can stack vulnerability like engineers, and no class has as much versatility packed into a single class, but people just don’t understand the class and the perception of what’s ‘best’ to a lot if the supposedly elite pugs still consist if 1mes and 4 warriors.

Ooops.8694:

All in all: engineers can only do things another class does better

This was true somewhere around release but after 2 years and numbers of tweaks and boosts its more like: engineer can do everything like other classes sometime better but he has much higher skillcap.

Generaly problem is in players. Engineer is complex class with very high skill cap and simply there is huge number of bad engis what make us bad name on lfg. You simply cant spam 1 to win like warrior for example.

After 2 years playing almost every class in game i decided to play an engi, at first i was omg this is a bit hard to master but thx to wolfineer’s guide i started to love this profession and il never turn back to other classes. My only regret is why i didnt started with an engi long time ago.

Also here the link for the guide
http://www.wolfineer.com/

Is the best so far.
Also a big thx to wolfi.

Got the wolfineer guide favorited; it’s good. I’m using a couple builds from there

Arantheal.7396:

It’s a matter of taste, dis-information and being lazy.
About taste:
Many people simply don’t like the steampunkish design of the class and want to play a mighty warrior / guard, an epic caster like eles (avatar-influence says hello), be the master of death (necros) or want to be the all-superior master-teef -> thief.
Other just find it remotely compeling but got driven away by the complexity and high skillfloor-required to play engi properly.

about dis-information:
welp, the eople above never really played an engi, and those who tried gave up without really looking into the class. So we have a kinda bad reputation because these people who tried, failed and rerolled a warri / guard think they’ve seen all we’re capable of.

I figured it was something along these lines. Well, I love it, but I’m going to be angry if I go into a fractal and get kicked just because of my class. Yeah, I could bring my warrior, but why would I play it when I find it so boring? But, I assume there are a lot of players out there who won’t judge you for the class you play as long as you play it well.

Arantheal.7396:

Many people simply don’t like the steampunkish design of the class

An then they met me and are grateful for steampunk:-D
http://i.imgur.com/hmWdXc0.jpg

I think this quote from last night sums up why you don’t see many Engi’s.

“wait, engi’s can stealth?”

Most people I run into have no clue what Engi can do, or how they do it.

It’s a great profession, a little wonky in how it works, gotta train the fingers, but it’s amazing. Top notch DPS if played right, sustained vuln stacks better than anyone else, and utility to toss in at a minor loss in damage if needed. Can stack some might in the meta build as well, and yes… we have stealth

And, while it’s generally best to stay in melee both for damage and group synergy, I love the freedom to step back and continue damaging in case you start to get low or what not. No need for big setup swaps just back out and keep throwing the nades, back in and FT/EG/Rifle rotation and back out again if needed.

Jerus.4350:

“wait, engi’s can stealth?”

“who dropped that wall of reflection (while the guard is offline)?”

Ooops.8694:

Jerus.4350:

“wait, engi’s can stealth?”

“who dropped that wall of reflection (while the guard is offline)?”

haha, yeah, was grouping with a couple buddies doing a fractal, got a pug guardian, we were doing something and my guard buddy goes “ohh nice, this other guard might not be so bad, he dropped a WoR” “umm, no, no he didn’t”

>running with a pug commander on TS
>maybe 15 people at him
>no ele around
>give him waterfields / firefields whenever he’s calling out for them
>after 20min:
“whoever played that ele, gg”
>.<

Arantheal.7396:

>running with a pug commander on TS
>maybe 15 people at him
>no ele around
>give him waterfields / firefields whenever he’s calling out for them
>after 20min:
“whoever played that ele, gg”
>.<

ouch

To be fair, the engineer and ele icons do look a bit similar.

The engineer’s strengths are a bit more subtle. Can eles put forth better healing, cleanses, and water fields? Maybe, but they have to switch to water and put their last attunement on cooldown. An engineer that has healing turret equipped can arbitrarily spray his toolbelt skill and go on as nothing has happened. But obviously exploiting something like that is harder than just smashing your face in the keyboard. And that’s the other problem. With all this toolkit switching and having to click every time for grenades, it can be pretty stressful to play.

A lot of people (from my observations in forums and in game) tend to analyze a class by looking their skills and traits in a vacuum without any analysis on how they work together in practice so that thus people see hundred blades do a lot of damage and assumes that warriors are the best because they get the biggest numbers. And that pretty much answers OP’s questions.

Personally, I like spamming grenades. I hated the kit at first, but then I keybound all my junk to a gaming mouse, and now I AOE the crap out of everything out in the open world where the kit I use doesn’t matter. Still choose that one 80% of the time; I don’t find it stressful.

But maybe what I really wanted was a “complicated” class – something where I have a lot to learn and a lot of room to improve. I feel like some of the other ones (warrior, as I said) are very limiting. I know people play it and find it fun, but it’s too boring for me. I want to master the content, not complete it.

Ooops.8694:

All in all: engineers can only do things another class does better, most of them are even more useless.

That’s the interesting thing to me: a good engi can take on the role of many of the other classes. Some classes can stack might more easily or stealth more frequently/longer or whatever, but engi can stealth, might, retaliate, heal, CC, DPS, condi, etc. and do all of these things quite well. As it’s been pointed out though, many people don’t know how to do a lot of these things. For example:

Might stacking-
1. HT
2. BoB, count to 2
3. Fire field (bomb 2)
4. detonate HT
5. Supply crate
(BoB goes off somewhere here)
6. Several options:
6a. EGun 4 and cancel, then shield 4 twice
6b. shield 4 twice then rocket shoes
6c. flame 2 twice then shield 4 twice
6d. Egun4 with cancel, shield 4 twice, then rocket shoes.

This will give 15-18 stacks of might to your party. Replace fire field with whatever other field you want for similar results (watch invisibility though since a lot of this will damage enemies and knock you out of stealth but still useful for sneaking into keeps in wvw). You can get yourself to 21 stacks of might by running FT with juggernaught and 25 stacks of might if you put sigil of battle on top of that but those won’t go to the rest of your party.

For those of you counting, that’s 11 keystrokes that have to be executed within 4 seconds and the timing has to be almost perfect or you’ll miss one (pro tip: gaming mouse required). If you’re in combat, you’ll be dodging the whole time while you do this also. This takes practice to pull off and is hard to figure out. Most players can’t do this but in my opinion it’s stuff like this that makes engi extremely valuable if the player is good.

^ And it’s things like that that make me choose engineer over the others. I’m by no means a “great” gamer, but anyone can be pretty good with a lot of practice. It’s much more exciting to me to try to master this kind of stuff.

I guess most people get knee deep in engi, look at it as “too hard”, and then go back to their warriors. Then, since engi takes longer to figure out, they decide it probably “sucks” because they don’t know it can do those things.

I also used to main a warrior. I left the game for a while, came back, and just wanted to play something else, I planned as an alt. Few months in to engineer and it was getting my ascended items.

The recurring theme with them is versatility. I can run zerker, spam nades in dungeons pve, then slap on cleric and bomb heal a zerg. Our builds may not top any scales all over, but kitten its fun, and with some practice pretty kitten effective.

Took my level 59 Engineer to Orr. Followed a group of 80’s on an event to retake a temple from the Undead.

Got a silver, died about 5 times total. Friend told me, “First, you’re crazy. Second, do that with your theif.” My response: “Only an engineer could pull that off.”

10/10 would always play.

(Elixer S)
Where did our engi go and what weird mini pet is that??

Ooops.8694:

Well… as you mentioned PvE and that’s mainly dungeons/fractals:

Here are the reasons most people don’t like engineers in their group:
- if you want dps, better take a warrior. best pve profession in game…
- if you need stealth, take a thief as their smoke field has a lower cd and is just better
- no one needs vulnerability… warriors (& thiefs) can perfectly well cap vulnerability on bosses
..

Here, half of your statement arent correct.

Engi has better dps then warrior, warrior is the combat nurse that buff other peoples dps, warrior dps itself is mediocre.
Engi has better vulnerability application then mesmer and mesmer is better then warrior, engi is like the best if you want to fast max out vulnerability aoe wise.
not sure why you mentioned thief here, it’s bad for vulnerability application.

Thief is better at stealth, but engi’s smoke screen is more then enough if have enough blasting, also elixir.

so if u bring an engineer ;

-25 perma vuln (w proper food ofc)
-fire fields
-smoke fields
-water fields(usually not needed, unless u totally pug and the engi blast it itself, is always nice to have a burst of 5-6 k aoe healing just in case)
-lots , lots of blast finishers on a reasonable cooldown
-can spec for reflects n stuff
-3rd best dps
-can pre stack 25 might solo by only sacrificing a single utility slot(can make vid if ppl interested)(ye a 50 s cd thumper turrret)(useful if ppl r bad and u need to carry em, requires em to listen to u though)
-reflects(a rly high uptime on it if purely specced for it(longer if bodyblock with shield 4)(low cooldown on turret reflects if chained)(elixir is the only one long )

in most cases the engi has most of it in a single build

I quite like personally that Engineer is the under-dog, it means we don’t get too many people on them and thus they are less likely to get nerfs

But yeah, the general GW2 community seem to think Engi is bad. Those who know they’re good, really know they’re good, and those who don’t know, think they’re trash.

For example, I was doing CoF the other day and a Warrior was arguing with me about how bad Engineer was, his main point? how Warrior stacks more vuln… sure :P

Don’t be worried about fractals. All good playeRd especially in grav know how good engis are. Ele is my baby but engi has basically become my main and I’ve never had a problem getting a party ever. I’ve also nev we seen a no engi in lfg. I’ve actually seen more no mesmer. Engi is a boss class that the average person can’t play simply cuz the heal is complicated and there’s no 1 melee auto attack to kill everything

The Baws.5164:

I quite like personally that Engineer is the under-dog, it means we don’t get too many people on them and thus they are less likely to get nerfs

But yeah, the general GW2 community seem to think Engi is bad. Those who know they’re good, really know they’re good, and those who don’t know, think they’re trash.

For example, I was doing CoF the other day and a Warrior was arguing with me about how bad Engineer was, his main point? how Warrior stacks more vuln… sure :P

Meawhile its actualy warrior who is average in damage and utility:-)