Guild Wars 2

Disclaimer: PvE only people, please don’t even bother with this thread as this is not what you are looking for.

So far I’ve played (at least in sPvP) every class with the exception of a necromancer.
Engi being the latest: I’ve created my engi 2 days ago and I’m quickly levelling it (lv 65 now). However, I’ve levelled it through sPvP alone (guess it was about time to use those 100+ glory boosters I had uh?).

I’m currently playing a 30-10-0-30-0 build, with Grenade, Bomb and Tool Kit as utilities (turret as heal and supply crate as elite). Weapons are Pistol/Shield.
So far, I consider the engineer the “easiest” class to play, because, despite being a complete noob at it, I could simply use every skill I had off cd and still be really effective at holding the point. You just need to save your blocks and your interrupts for clutch situations, but that’s it.
Of course I’m bad – who wouldn’t with only 15 hours of play time in a class? – but this is the first class I’ve experienced this with.
Spirit Rangers are similar, but once their spirits are killed (which is quite common with all the AoEs going around in PvP) they are total crap and there are lots of counters to them. With engi, the only thing I fear are necros: every other class I see coming at me while I am holding a point is a complete laugh: just spam every bomb/nade you have off cd, mix it with F2-F3, Pistol #2 and #3. Heal up, use your elite for an istant iWin button. If you get knocked back, wait for their stability to expire and regain control of the point with your many knockbacks.
And team fights are even more easy, because with all your AoEs everything will just melt to my conditions, all while spamming nades and bombs on points whenever they are off CD.

Eles have the same amount of skills at their disposal, but if they press all the buttons randomly they will die even faster, and their Attunement Cooldown locks them out if they miss a key skill. Engis don’t even have to worry about this.

In my opinion, this class is hard to play for beginners of the game, because you need to press lots of buttons quickly. BUT if you have already experience of how to play this game, you won’t have many problems with it.
OF COURSE there is an infinite amount of better engis than me, and OF COURSE people who know when to use a skill are way better than me. But, as I said, this is the first class which you can just press everything and things still die. APM are way higher of course, but APM =/= Skill in competitive play (imho).

The variables I have to consider when I’m playing a different class (such as Mesmer or Thief or even spirit Ranger) are almost infinite. When I’m on my engi, I just rush for the point (unless there are 3+ people on it), press everything at my disposal and watch things melt. I can even force a decap if 2 people are defending a node actually.

Of course my experience is quite limited (played hotjoin the first day and solo queue the second day), but these are my impressions. I’ve always seen the engineers as the highest skill ceiling class in all areas of the game, and this discovery really surprised me.
Playing D/P trickery thief or Shatter mesmer has turned out to be incredibly more difficult than engi so far.

The reason I included WvW in the title is to include roamers and duelers from WvW, as this will be one of the things I will do once I reach lv80.

Please note: I’m not saying that the engi takes no skill, that things should be nerfed (well, I think passive crit procs should be removed entirely but that’s a different matter) or anything. This thread is NOT a rant and I still consider myself a noob engineer.

TL;DR: Not a rant; rather a surprise to me. People say that engis are the most difficult class to play. After having played 7 classes in PvP, I found out that condi bunker engi is the only class which enables you to do well if you just spam everything you have not in cooldown.

“Condi bunker engi” is not a class. Bunker builds tend to be the easiest builds to play, so maybe try some rifle (burst/control) builds. Also, different builds result in different optimal playstyles concerning things like engaging, disengaging, positioning, etc. – so you should only directly compare bunkers with bunkers etc.
It’s no surprise that “spam skills to stack condis” feels easy and random to you but that’s not the only possible playstyle for an engineer. The “problem” is that, in your build, all offensive skills can work as “1” skill (if the enemy plays his part in this and ignoring the existing combo potential for things like stealth → magnet pull, might → more might). Therefore it comes down to your defensive and control abilities as well as your support in teamfights, and if the enemies hardly pressure you and you dont (have to) care for things like interrupting or blinding something specific, stomp, revive or aoe condi removal, of course the challenge will be small to nonexistent.

as you get to higher ranks, you’ll find the better players there know the weaknesses of an engi and know how to exploit it. getting focused during team fights, least condi removal out of all the classes, limited stun breakers, etc. the engi is really powerful at 1v1 fights on point and roaming so i’m not surprised a veteran player can pick it up quickly. mastering tactics like hitting a spirit ranger with incendiary powder over his spirits or knowing when to use your blinds is a different story and definitely won’t be achieved by mashing 2-5.

also if you think engi is easy, play a necro. imo necro is the easiest condi class to play.

Not sure why you threw WvW in the title.

D/P thief is really hard to play in PvP, despite what people think about them.

Engineer has a moderately high skill floor and ceiling due to high apm and a medium-high rate of active decision-making (in other words, it’s not just a set “rotation” of skills that can be memorized). They’re not the hardest profession/build to succeed with, necessarily.

You’ll likely have a tougher time once you fight any other condition build (you seem to have no cleansing outside of healing turret) or any build with decent condition removal.