Guild Wars 2

I’m a lvl 76 thief now and have a lvl 9 elementalist. I’ve been thinking about getting an engineer but don’t know people who are.

What are they like? Worth it? What do you recommend about them? What skills and traits should I use? I know they are squishy, but are they strong enough? Can you take on multiple mobs at once?

Just curious.

My engineer is level 70, and has been my main character since the game released. I have tried SPvP, PVE, WVW, and Dungeons with her.
The best way I know to describe the engineer is that it’s kind of like playing inspector gadget.
You can switch your skills out on the fly to assume just about any role in the game. Depending on spec you can also become extremely strong in any of those roles. The class is very fun to play, but also quite complicated, the kit system in particular will definitely take some time to master. Having played engineer and tried several other classes, I can safely say I wouldn’t consider playing any other class.

To answer your questions directly, Yes they are worth it. I personally very much enjoy my power/crit based rifle/kit build, but I’ve known other engineers to love totally different builds just as much. Engineers can be squishy or incredibly durable, depending on how you want to play, and if you don’t mind being squishy they can deliver frankly stupid amounts of damage, though not in quite so quick a burst as a thief. A properly equipped engineer can take on a dozen melee mobs and kill them all or solo single champion creatures, depends how you gear and spec.

anything you dislike about it?

For me the dislikes are trivial the occasional bug here and there but are almost unnoticeable.

My biggest dislike though is my indecisiveness with the class itself, the engineer fills in so many different roles and is so flexible that you almost wish you could use EVERYTHING! The engineer will never do 1 thing extremely well, but will do them all well enough!

I love the engineer :p. They are really diverse and score on every role, they are a great support class but he can change into dps really fast. Many dungeon runs use an engineer in their party. The toolbelt gives you loads of extra options (+4 extra skills is really nice), and the most important thing:

FLAMETHROWER!

I actually really miss switching weapons/ lack of weapons.
There are 3 weapon sets, and 1 underwater weapon. It doesn’ give you that much choice, although you find engineers playing with every weapon set.

BUILDS:
Since you are a thief you likely have enough of the glass cannon play style (Grenadier build for Engys) so I will comment on the other play styles of the Engineer. Grenadier is not quite up to Thief or Warrior burst dmg but it is AoE and works well.

Rifle/Turret build is very common for leveling up the Engy as the turrets will attract aggro and allow you to blast away while the NPC’s attack your turrets. Some people use this build for sPVP and WvW but it is less popular as people generally wish more stun breaks and mobility. This set up is usually precision +power + either vitality or toughness based. Gives some survivability with a decent 35-45% crit chance and lackluster dmg with your weapon but turrets suppliment this. This is a good distracted player build that doesn’t take much skill for when you aren’t fully tuned in and just meandering though some content.

Pistol/pistol condition dmg builds are out there and offer good burst and great mobility but are again either glass cannon or only half hearted survivability since so much goes into making the condition damage optimized. Not quite a necro or ele condition setup but its workable.

Pistol/Shield Bunker build goes for max survivability and usually bombs invulns and knockdowns to give time to heal when needed. Fun build and awesome when defending a static point like in sPVP. Not quite a guardian bunker but its workable.

Pistol/Shield Offensive build (yes offensive with a shield) relies on condition dmg and kits to deal dmg then utilized the shield for invuln and stun while condition dmg is ticking away. It also allows the best weapon combo finishing options we have. Kits and skills give us a few more but for weapons you get projectile finishers on all weapons and the shield has a blast finisher. So for skilled combo utilizing players pistol/shield with some kits trade outs for the fields you want over lots of options without switching much, and good survivability with the invuln and usually have a vitality or toughness built into build to give more hp. Truely the jack of all trades, you can kill so not purely bunker defence, but just not fast like a glass cannon build, plus you have many combo options to get you into or out of a wide range of situations.

DISLIKES:
-I don’t see “we need an engy” like I do some of the other classes. Still get groups fairly quickly but its nice to be NEEDED some times.
-Because we have many situational skills I get caught with the wrong skills for the job on quite often. Sieging a tower with a mortar and thowable turrets only to get flanked and need the supply drop, stun break and grenades/bombs. Attacking a supply camp but timer isn’t up so need condition dmg have to back out and switch in call owl and rifle turret.
-Wondering why your rifle isn’t auto firing then realizing your kit is still on from toggling it for mobility.
-Lack of viable options for elite skills 99% of the time you end up with supply drop. Mortar for sieges with lots of defenders. Then immediately back to supply drop. Racial skill snow leapord for running down a straggler. Then immediately back to supply drop. Whirlwind/poison cloud underwater 50/50 chance of getting the good one, roll the dice to see if you fight or run.
-Some skills have random abilities. You often get the ability you didn’t want. Plenty of good options other than the random ones for those who don’t like them though.

In summary, There are many good commonly used builds out there and when you look at the videos of the builds you will commonly see people say “This slot can be whatever suits your playstyle” as there are a lot of skills and traits which are equally viable in the builds. We are not out of options for builds yet I see new builds out there every time I do my weekly sweep. Most are situational at best but due to our wide range of skills and traits that are actually useful and functional we have the option of being creative. Not all classes get that. Every one of our builds has another class that does it a little better but we get to choose between all of them.

Hope this helps.

Vees, what did you dislike about thief? Tell us what you liked about the least or what differences you would like to play from your previous experiences, and perhaps we can offer you ideas in the professions based on that.

People shouldn’t be saying they “Need a class” for a dungeon Csaj, they should be saying they need a "role. It’s that sort of elitism that will lead to everyone rolling only Warriors and guardians for the sake of “Efficiency”.

Another reason they don’t generally ask for engi’s is most people feel Engi’s aren’t a popular class. Not because they are bad compared to every other class (Remember, Every class other than Warriors and Guardians are terrible at the moment) but because they just are not that common of a choice.

I absolutely agree with bard, especially about his point on a role and not a class.

As well, I agree that alot of the reason engineers are not as popular is because the mindset of the general population is so decayed, that they will actually just assume the class with the least player population must be the worst, and simply avoid it based on some unfactual presumption of a nature of that sort.

What I didn’t like about thief’s…. hm. I really like thief’s.

But I wish dagger/dagger had a skill that hit’s surrounding foes. I guess the dagger throw could be used as that and death blossom. I feel as tho dagger/dagger is more efficient,but it it’s geared more towards a single target. I can make up for that by using Guild of Thieves by calling two thieves.

I’m talking about the weapon skills, now, I know the other skills have surrounding hits.

But the main thing that bugs me is my defense:P but that’s the nature of em so I can’t complain