Guild Wars 2

Well, I wouldn’t roll an engi if I knew what I know now.

On the other hand I won’t delete my current lvl 80 engi. I’m kinda fine with it for now. And I surely hope that the profession will be fixed\reworked eventually.

I’d say – don’t roll and engineer if you want to serious dungeon\higher level fractals runs. Really there are better classes for that atm and they require a lot less stupid button-mashing.

If you want to do PvP, just want to have a lvl 80 engi alt or want to be carried by other party-members while you pretend to be a “healer” – then sure, go for engi.

KirinDave.6451:

It’s to the point where I don’t want to inflict my engineer on other people. I am at the point where I feel guilty bringing an engineer into a party because I am pretty sure I am doing 1/4 of what anyone else facerolling the keyboard could do.

This pretty much sums up how I feel at the moment. I love playing my engineer solo, it takes a bit more time than my other professions but I feel much more in control of pretty much any situation. When it comes to group content though I feel that I am contributing less and that makes me uncomfortable so, unless there is clearly a lack of support then I’ll bring a different character.

Caveat: It may well be that I’m an unskilled player, in fact this is very likely; but it’s sad that I feel that I can’t contribute as much with this one profession in PvE group content as I can playing other professions with an equal lack of skill.

tigirius.9014:

Please don’t tell people that the cone attacks like Fumigate work well because we all know it doesn’t this is one of the cone abilities that’s had serious miss problems since before launch and no it has nothing to do with the camera because the cone attacks on the other classes don’t miss like this and FT. There’s something specific to engineers that’s wrong with these two and the p/p torch ability that causes them to miss in this fashion. It doesn’t matter where my camera is on my toon it still misses 40% of the time even when trying to cure friendlies.

I disagree with this. I notice the same cone targetting issues leveling my elementalist. It’s worse with Flame Grab. Whiffing with that after a setup can be pretty demoralizing. Cone targeting seems to be problematic.

Lifelike.5862:

Inventions has several traits worth getting for a bunker build. +toughness with shields and shield cooldowns is a necessary skill for the healer bomb build, since you will be using the shield’s blast finisher and projectile reflect a lot. Toughness into power is not bad either since you’re already building toughness if you’re going with +healing power anyway (clerics/apothecary armor, etc)

That and Healing bombs…hmm, seems like all traits that directly benefit my build. And no, I am not giving up everything for it either. My build supports, and it does respectable damage for a supposed ‘full-tank’ build while still being very durable.

Who respects the damage output of a x/x/30/30/x bomb build with a shield and a whopping +100-200 converted power from traits? Minion master necromancers? But I can see why you want toughness with the elixir bombs, they’re one of the more awkward healing delivery mechanisms.

I had no problems with ele’s Drake’s Breath. I could run in circles around mobs and still get hits.
With FT it’s like you make one step and it is MISSMISSMISSMISSMISS

I would compare fumigate to drake’s breath. Much easier to hit than flamethrower by far, and easier to hit than flame grab. Elementalists certainly get their fair share of wierd too.

And yes, healing bombs is an awkward method of healing, but with 10 specced into explosions for the increased radius, I do about 800-1k damage a pop per autoattack bomb, while healing and ticking from conditions. That’s really not bad at all for a full tank build. My conditions thief does around 700 damage per autoattack with a dagger. Yes he attacks much faster, but the damage bombs offer is nothing to sneeze at. And then there’s also the retalliation I’m almost constantly under thanks to elixer B and light fields.

Then you could also be running apothecary’s gear and rely on the conditions to do the work for you. You get a lot of confusion and a nice burn AOE as well as (admittedly crappy) bleeds. You would think this build kills things a lot slower than it actually does. The damage to toughness/healing ratio is actually very nice.

Lifelike.5862:

My conditions thief does around 700 damage per autoattack with a dagger. Yes he attacks much faster, but the damage bombs offer is nothing to sneeze at.

And how much are you healing for, since you’re at about 1/3 the direct dps of a condi thief?

And then there’s also the retalliation I’m almost constantly under thanks to elixer B and light fields.

Retaliation scales with your power.

I have just finished leveling my thief and my guardian to level 80. The thief easily deals a lot more damage on demand and can get away from a battle most of the time. The guardian can definitely out support any engineer if he wants, and also deal more damage with more survivability against a group of NPCs.

One thing I find going for the engineer though is that I haven’t found myself hard-countered 1v1 yet. Anything thief build I tried on my thief, there is always some build out there that you might as well stealth away and go kill somebody else, because there is simply nothing you can do against it. My guardian has a crap ton of problems against good players kiting me even with 2 teleports. When I play these two classes I occasionally get the feeling of “Nope no chance, time to fight somebody else.” The engineer always seem to give me this sense of (possibly false) hope that I can beat that dude if I could only pull this and that off at the right time.

KirinDave.6451:

Lifelike.5862:

My conditions thief does around 700 damage per autoattack with a dagger. Yes he attacks much faster, but the damage bombs offer is nothing to sneeze at.

And how much are you healing for, since you’re at about 1/3 the direct dps of a condi thief?

And then there’s also the retalliation I’m almost constantly under thanks to elixer B and light fields.

Retaliation scales with your power.

I’m healing about 277(bombs) + 140 (kit regen) + 299(regen) + 280 (super elixer) per bomb/tick and I haven’t even gotten full cleric’s gear yet. I’m still missing exotic jewellery and some pieces of armor, so I’m going to estimate that I’d be healing for well over 1k per second. And that’s just bombs, super elixer and regen. healing turret deploy self heals for over 6k, plus 2-3k aoe heals from a detonate (I can trigger that multiple times through careful use of blast finishers and careful timing, thanks to BoB and detonate turret being toolkit skills)

the healing is not spike-y like a guardians or elementalists, but as far as sustained healing goes, it’s very good.

And yes, retalliation does scale with power. Clerics gives power. I might not be specced into 30 in explosives, but it’s enough to give an extra 500-600 damage per hit against me while my bombs do a bit more than 1k per explosion.

Nautix.6385:

Deified.7520:

See we dont have a build that can hold its own well. Thiefs have the 24/7 stealth and instant 15,000 damage builds, warriors have thousands blades, mesmers (this is the one I see most often) is the clone spam/blurred frenzy build. If engineer still had a build that held its own in pvp then I’m sure much less of us would be complaint. Instead our only build, grenades, which people considered “op” (Which really wasn’t, it was mediocre at best) got nerfed hard every single class patch while their op builds go untouched.

I would recommend experimenting with you engineer and learning the class in pvp before complaining.

Thief 15000 dmg, clones on mesmer & thousand blades – All easily countered by elixir s

I’ve had tons of thieves jump me with the heartstrike just to waste all of their initiative on elixir s and then I just cc destroy them.

That’s just one example of how to counter them. I’ll let you figure out the rest!

I know! they cant play

i popped Elixir S also yesterday and i killed 3 thiefs 5 mesmers 8 guardians 4warriors At the same time

you know i just Cc destroy them….

Lifelike as you said that build works well with Warriors melees / thiefs other classes can keep distance and deal High dmg and survive ( ofc if they aint kitten some might actully die )

This thread is correct. The only reason I’m sticking out engineer is because I don’t want to reroll and I usually want to play the most underplayed class even if I have a horrible frustrating time of it.

But what I do to get by is this; Toolkit magnet in WvW zerg. You’re actually gonna get kills with this and be kredit to team, do it. Don’t do it against Northern Shiverpeaks players though.

And an injured pigeon can level to 80. If you need a guide, super gear and handholding to get through solo PvE stuff you’re bad. If all you’re going to be doing is PvE stuff, roll whatever junk you want.

Interesting.
I just picked this game up a couple of days back, and brought the elementalist and engineer to 10, and have been trying to figure out who to run with as my main.
This seems to have a pretty valid complaint about engineers; and to those that say, “All you have to do is….” I can respond by saying of course, duh. ANY given situation has a solution, but the question is how laborious that solution is.
I really love the idea of the steampunk fantasy battler. I already love my Charr eng, but I really hate the idea of needing to be carried at the end of my journey!
I like the elementalist too; the worst complaint I’ve read so far is “you have to have d/d”.
Might be true. Disappointing to hear that this class doesn’t have chops to back up it’s “master of it all” scheme, though.

I’m gonna cross post this from another thread, as it is relevant here:

"

In a game where every class is a hybrid, it’s engineers who get slapped with the hybrid tax on their potential damage output, while elementalists get to be the ones labelled ‘king of versatility’.

Pretty much this. Seriously play another class for a bit. We get jipped out of a weapon slot and loose a utility for each kit we want to equip. Some will mention the toolbelt, but many classes get an equivalent bar, e.g. mesmers get shatters that have equal if not better offensive and defensive abilities.

And it isn’t just damage, it’s defense and utility as well. What we give up for kits is not worth it, not by a long shot."

I’m just sorry it took me so long to realize this.

I pop elixir S and Blocks all the time to out due their burst damage. But what happens if there’s two thiefs? Two warriors? Unless you’re running a toolkit or p/s shield build, that other warrior will just wait for that elixir S to end and will wreck your face. All these people defending the engineer can brown nose and hope if they will. But a few things exist. One is this thread. The fact that this thread exist with this many replies shows that something is clearly wrong. You hardly see any engineers. It is one of the least played classes. Has been since release, still is. I need a special skill that turns me invulnerable just to counter a class. There exist builds for classes that can take out 75%+ of your hp. In no mmo should something like this exist, especially in two classes.

The basics of the engineer are: you play at 100% to match others at 80%.

The stated dev philosophy for engineer is pretty demoralising e.g
. bad at everything but fictional situations like ’ middle range’.
Taxed for hybrid, when everyone else is an untaxed hybrid.
Missing weapons, swaps, on swap runes, weapon stats, weapon selection etc
No role we excel at.
Only being able to trait for one kit to medium effect at once means versatility fantasy is entirely absent in the actual play.

Sad, but true pretty much. That, and this.

Thenoob.1480:

The basics of the engineer are: you play at 100% to match others at 80%.

No matter how well you play as engineer, you’re only going to be ‘okay’.

For kittens and giggle I added half of the “No really, Engineers are fine” to my watch list.

Want to take a guess as to what class they where playing?

Hint: It starts with an “N”, and ends with “ot an Engineer”.

No imo they only play engineer. They focused on one class and are realy mad other ppl say their chosen class is weak. It’s like u got a girlfriend and u are first-love focused on her and all ppl say she is ugly and dumb.

I play Engineer, Thief and Elementalist as my main 3 classes, and have one of every other class except for ranger. I would think that my thief gets more play than my Engineer, so you can’t say I don’t have experiences with other classes.

The only time my engineer has proven to be worthy was the other day. I was in wv3 with my buddy, we were in skype. He always looks out for me when I cant look out for myself. He was on his ranger I think, or guardian…anyway.

There was a mad fight…the enemies forces were growing and ours were diminishing greatly. We were not far from our keep and he was yelling at me, run lil buddy (my character is a small asura, his is a big butt norn). So we were running and a thief decides to pop out on me and is killing me faster than you can type a “period”.

I was running like a mad asura, for the keep…300 reds behind me, I dropped a frost grenade on the thief who was keeping up with me and clink clink…clink is all I heard..all my nades were on CD, so I just started throwing the #1. nades behind me (I am still nade build and geared)..I mean they were right at me feet. My targeting reticle’s edge was on my feet. I did not look back and just kept running….I was getting away..how I did not know.

My buddy was laughing is butt off hysterically and could not catch his breath…he was way in front of me cause he was never attacked or slowed. He said it was the funniest thing seeing my lil guy running for his life and tossing grenades behind me like a crazy person with the enemy actually turning back because I was doing reasonable damage…esp to the thief.

From this I gathered a couple things.

Engineers need 50" monitors with a 10000 yard camera zoom so we can run away and toss grenades behind us and actually see what is not only in front of us, but behind. Its about the only way you can keep aware of the situation. This really goes for any ranged class who is always strafing, never seeing what is in front of them…but because engineers do little damage and take little damage you really cant afford to engage in melee combat…

Anyway…I love my engineer, but I hate him. I support this thread. I have since leveled a mesmer to 80, a rifle warrior (lol talk about real ranged burst with a gun…and its a warrior), my cheap thief is 51, my ele is 72, necro 50.

I have found the only use for my engineer in the game is Wv3 keep patrol….that is I am good at keeping the enemy off the walls while we work the gate…outside of that he is about the biggest “meh” class in game.

And then arena net comes along and nerfs grenades… /facepalm

You can engage in melee combat if you build for bombs, and you never have to bother about looking behind you while running either, since you can just turn and run while leaving a trail of explosives.

OP , you are right in regards to pvp / WvW without a doubt , in pve they do a pretty solid support job though , in regards to overall damage Engineer is way behind , this is a comparison to a ranger and a warrior i see the engineers damage is still lacking , i enjoy the class mind you but it does need more touchup in regards to bringing it up to par with any of the classes that are generally not insane in damage (thieves warriors mesmers(though mesmers arent that bad unless the player is REALLY GOOD)). The class is really fun it just lacks that punch for all the gadgets and tools it has , i could say it feels very sluggish as well.

Thenoob.1480:

The basics of the engineer are: you play at 100% to match others at 80%.

The upside of that is when you find a good Engineer you know they are actually good and it’s not their class.

But yeah, my Engie just hit lvl 11 and I’m having a hell of a time with DPS when I use Pistol/Shield. Makes me want to finish leveling my Ranger (lvl 68). I never thought I’d say that. <head-desk>

Sometimes I get the impression that toolkits/weaponkits are the only viable option. -_-

CrazyAce.3842:

Thenoob.1480:

The basics of the engineer are: you play at 100% to match others at 80%.

The upside of that is when you find a good Engineer you know they are actually good and it’s not their class.

But yeah, my Engie just hit lvl 11 and I’m having a hell of a time with DPS when I use Pistol/Shield. Makes me want to finish leveling my Ranger (lvl 68). I never thought I’d say that. <head-desk>

Sometimes I get the impression that toolkits/weaponkits are the only viable option. -_-

They where before they gutted them last patch.

I love my engineer like a father loves his very sick and weak firstborn son…

I’m trying to figure out when people are going to realize that slotting a kit doesn’t take away a skill… it gives you 5 skills (6 with Kit Refinement) and with near instantaneous kit swapping and next to no cool down on swapping you can swap back and forth between sets of skills like a mofo.

Lifelike.5862:

You can engage in melee combat if you build for bombs, and you never have to bother about looking behind you while running either, since you can just turn and run while leaving a trail of explosives.

you telling people spec to survive melee how about he other 90% ranged classes

You hold up a sign KILL ME and you obv not gonna kill them

commanderrab.5139:

I’m trying to figure out when people are going to realize that slotting a kit doesn’t take away a skill… it gives you 5 skills (6 with Kit Refinement) and with near instantaneous kit swapping and next to no cool down on swapping you can swap back and forth between sets of skills like a mofo.

i am trying to figure out how 35 90% useless skills is better than 25 Overpowered ones

commanderrab.5139:

I’m trying to figure out when people are going to realize that slotting a kit doesn’t take away a skill… it gives you 5 skills (6 with Kit Refinement) and with near instantaneous kit swapping and next to no cool down on swapping you can swap back and forth between sets of skills like a mofo.

The kits however are very very specialized in most cases. Some are even useless.

Tool kit- mostly tanky. Nobody auto attacks with it. Since turrets are pretty much useless, very few builds use it

Bomb kit- Requires you to be next to him and for him to stay next to the bomb. Most of its usefulness is only found in sPvP in bunkering, and support with combo fields.

Flamthrower- auto attack does poor damage. The Napalm bomb is poorly designed. Rest of it skills are used for again, support. Especailly DPS support. Again…close range mostly, especially with the miss miss miss bug.

Elixir Gun- Mostly support. Skills are good, but very low dps

Grenades- Only DPS kit we have that does reasonable damage. Has been nerfed like a shooting a dead horse in the head. Easy to counter and dodge.

So sure the kits gives us skills. But most of the time the skills are only used to support.

Another thing is that we don’t have a weaponswap. Kits are supposed to be our “weaponswaps” and take up utility slots instead. Their skills should be very good considering they are not only taking up a utility slot, but also they are our sub for no weapon swapping. You look at other skills and they can do more than half the things can do and more with one weapon and a utility. They offer a projectile that returns to you and is easy to dodge, AoE regen, AoE grenades which is one of the only viable ones, flameshots (provide burning, 3 shots, can easily be countered by oen condition removal.

Just saying, bomb kit is amazing in pve as well, since most mobs are stupid enough to just run right up to you and take it all.

@op
As much as I hate the poor attention the engineer class has been receiving and despite the needs of improvements and stronger options, I don’t think it is a good idea to make such a blunt title for this thread. I think we should let people try out and see for themselves, we need more people to see what engineer is like and give us more support in raising the significance of getting this class fixed.
Even after the update, I still can’t stop playing my engineer, because it is too fun. After rolling with enginneer with 350+ hours, all other profession seems kitten easy and boring.

Experience shows that mmo devs develop thick skins to endure all the unwarranted whining, unfortunately this makes it almost impossible to communicate with them when their design decisions don’t resonate with any but a tiny stubborn handful of walk twelve miles in the snow in bare feet masochists.

The operation of an engineer can be fun, if only the balance, traits and major bugs were heading in a positive direction people wouldd be more optimistic, but it’s getting worse not better. For a supposedly versatile class, we have far less viable builds now than at release.

Yeah, as much as I like playing on my engineer, I have to agree with OP here. In WvW, I have to constantly kit switch and ground target with my engineer just to be as effective as other classes. By contrast, I get kills with my rifle warrior just as easily by picking a target and using my weapon skills.

Engineers underperformance is by design, it is intented.

This is not a case of devs simply having to get around and buffing/fixing stuff. They think Engineer is in a good spot, we are suppose to be weaker.
So if you find some way to be almost as good as another profession, it will likely get nerfed.

This is a case of devs having to critically rethink their design filosophy for the Engineer. So dont expect any positive changes anytime soon. Instead, expect more nerfs as people desperatly try crazier and crazier builds to compete with other professions (flamenommer, hello?). And this is not intented, so these builds will be identified and nerfed over the next couple of months.
Just like theyve been doing for the past couple of months.

Engineer is definitely sub-par in PvE and WvW, they are fine in SPvP though.

If this bothers you, listen to OP stay away from the class.

Can still be fun to play and if you don’t care about those things.

edit: This is from someone that loves their engineer to death but If I’m doing anything serious he gets to sit on the sidelines.

According to what the dev’s claim, I would like this to be true:

if an engineer builds for versatility, he has to be so versatile he can compete with the more specified builds of other professions.

Untill this statement is true (it currently is not) any mention of paying a price for being versatile, is a slap in the face and a poor excuse.

Engineers should be at their best in a versatile build, while the truth is that they are at their very weakest in a versatile build…
The only engineer builds that come close to what others can do, are those builds that specify as far as they possibly can.

We are not versatile and strong.
We are either versatile and weak, or specified and still not as strong as others.
That’s how we are designed.

Either way, we lose!

warning: pls dont listen to nonfactors and try to avoid the forum alltogether. youll love your engineer every second.

sorry i’m not seeing it. with my build i have 4 condition removals (2 aoe ones for my team), permanent swiftness and vigor, access to all 4 damaging conditions, the ability to stack and maintain 20-25 vulnerability single-handedly (10-15 on bosses), huge aoe, multiple combo fields, the list goes on and on. also i just like the kitten class. what is the issue again? that you think we should be able to do all these things AND have the same raw damage output as a thief? give me a break. go cry somewhere else.

to the guy having issues leveling, go double pistols and bombs. with 2 aoe immobilize/cripple and a lingering aoe blind, you couldn’t die even if you tried. malign > ravaging > rampager > rabid gear. grenades over bombs at 60 with the trait. get speedy kits as fast as you can.

i should also mention engi is the best underwater class by a huge margin.

ellesee.8297:

sorry i’m not seeing it. with my build i have 4 condition removals (2 aoe ones for my team), permanent swiftness and vigor, access to all 4 damaging conditions, the ability to stack and maintain 20-25 vulnerability single-handedly (10-15 on bosses), huge aoe, multiple combo fields, the list goes on and on. also i just like the kitten class. what is the issue again? that you think we should be able to do all these things AND have the same raw damage output as a thief? give me a break. go cry somewhere else.

to the guy having issues leveling, go double pistols and bombs. with 2 aoe immobilize/cripple and a lingering aoe blind, you couldn’t die even if you tried. malign > ravaging > rampager > rabid gear. grenades over bombs at 60 with the trait. get speedy kits as fast as you can.

i should also mention engi is the best underwater class by a huge margin.

Sure lets balance this game looking at pve at a Brainless boss who dosnt move

This people is a Moron i would even say he is the Boss of the morons, the leader, the king

oh i’m sorry. substitute vulnerability maintenance with numerous immobilizes (one of the best conditions in pvp), and a big stun. point still stands.

also reread that last sentence and then tell me who the real moron is.

Please refrain from name calling. This thread is full of useful information and opinion. We don’t want to get it locked because people can’t behave themselves.

Over 500+ hours here on my engi , spread over 35% PvE , 50% WvW and then 15% sPvP. I’ll just quickly summarize my views based on what I experienced. If you really want to roll an engi, you need to put in over 60 hours at the minimum to understand how everything works (engi spells are weird as hell , aka slick shoes…)plus get yourself used to the high speed spamming.

The engineer’s individual spells are kitten weak and laughable, but with so many toggle-able kits with no cooldown unlike ele, the sky is the limit. How strong you can be is not limited by at what timing you pop your cooldowns but also by how fast you can nail the spells ( in Starcraft this is called mechanics ) since most spells come with very low cooldowns ( Rifle 2 = 8/10s , Rifle 4 = 15/20s , Grenade 2= 4/5s , Grenade 4 =15/20s , Medkit spells etc ). Then comes the mixing and matching of dozens of spells to adapt to your opponent which you will learn through experience or talking to one of the vet engies.

For WvW/sPvP :
As for balance, it sucks for Engineer. All that effort and learning to get used to the fancy kit-swapping and spamming ( Grenade kit = carpal tunnel kit)will only get you on a competitive level with other classes ( opinion, feel free to disagree ). But when you win a duel of some sort with engi, it feels immensely rewarding and no one can discredit it since you were the underdog to begin with. Its like you brought a cloth hangar to a sword fight and still wiped the floor with your kendo training.

If you want to roll an engi, be prepared to put in effort and get stomped on early on. Its a continous learning process and even now I’m still seeing lolwtf builds being experimented on. Once you played like 100 hours you gain an appreciation for the addictive playstyle the engineer provides.

KirinDave.6451:

Just to let people know what it feels like to have an L80 engineer: I do not get groups for fractals except from charitable guildmates. And most of the people are not kitten about it, “This is a PUG and fractals past 8 can be dicey with PUGs. An engineer is just too weak to bring. Sorry! Maybe when I have more guildies we can take you.”

Charity. How mendacious of them.

I just want to say that this has never happened to me. I pug Fractal 10 every night for the daily (usually using gw2lfg), and I’ve never been kicked from a party for being an engineer. It’s also true I’m running a 50% tough/zerker split, as well as a juggernaut/rifle skill build, so my DPS isn’t over-the-top awesome, but I am easily a survivor, capable of safely ressing teammates with Elixir S (which is actually what I most often use it for), and fully capable of setting every mob on fire for extended durations.

And it’s not like engineers aren’t viable at all. Two days again I ended up in a Fractal 10 pug consisting of three engineers and two mesmers, and OF COURSE the fractal pattern we got was Ascalon -> Dredge -> Grawl (and Jade Quarry, of course). And we still managed it fine, even if the first two especially were areas I would have liked a melee (protip: gear shield + elixir S are lifesavers when standing on a switch). Granted we were definately more cautious as we went along, but we succeeded.

If people are actually kicking engineers from a party, then you need to consider it to be due to one of following things. Either:

1) The party members are complete kittens and think player skill accounts for less than player class selection.
2) The party members are absolutely terrible and cannot succeed unless they try to stack the group to carry their inadequacy (ie. peace of mind).
3) You are running a build the group just doesn’t need, be it support, condition spec, or whatever else can become bloated if too many people in the group are running it.
4) You’re actually either a glass-cannon build or just a mediocre/terrible player and the party knows this.

I admit this may be more valid for higher fractals, where parties ARE very choosey about who they bring (I have only been as high as 17, but that’s on me). I can understand this, though I can’t imagine being kicked if you still have 10 agony resist or more.

TurtleMuncher.9750:

If you want to roll an engi, be prepared to put in effort and get stomped on early on. Its a continous learning process and even now I’m still seeing lolwtf builds being experimented on. Once you played like 100 hours you gain an appreciation for the addictive playstyle the engineer provides.

This is so true.

I’ve play with a razer nostromo game pad, razer naga mouse, and razer deathstalker keyboard. I have every single key mapped out which allows me to never have to lift my hand from wasd (which is at my thumb) to hit any keybinding and have every single keybinding memorized from muscle memory. I control F1-F4 with my right hand on the mouse, and 1-0 with my left fingers (wasd jump and tab are all with my thumb).
With that said, if I take a day off playing the engineer I can visibly see my performance decrease.

I can take 2 months off playing a thief/warrior and it is as if I never left the class.
So yes, the engineer is exponentially more complicated, and it requires perfect execution to be 80% of what can be done on the top tier classes.

Soo, I should feel bad about rolling an engineer?

Mictla.3058:

Soo, I should feel bad about rolling an engineer?

Absolutely not. Just realize it’s not a faceroll profession. There is a huge difference between an average engineer, and an amazing engineer.

ellesee.8297:

oh i’m sorry. substitute vulnerability maintenance with numerous immobilizes (one of the best conditions in pvp), and a big stun. point still stands.

also reread that last sentence and then tell me who the real moron is.

well..

its still you

re read what i said i stand corrected until you can beat my mesmer in spvp

SoulstitchMMO.1396:

Mictla.3058:

Soo, I should feel bad about rolling an engineer?

Absolutely not. Just realize it’s not a faceroll profession. There is a huge difference between an average engineer, and an amazing engineer.

There are many classes that aren’t “faceroll” professions. Elementalists and mesmers come to mind. According to Anet, elementalists are much more versatile then we are. And they do more damage. And they can have comparable survivabillity to our best bunker builds. And they get to keep their secondary weapon set, which in turn gives them, effectively, 4 kits per weapon slot.

So every elementalist, for your reference, effectively has 8 kits available to them in addition to ALL of their utility skills in ANY build. Moreover, their kits are customizable by weapon selection. There are 5 possible weapon combinations for the elementalist. So when making their build, the elementalist gets its choice of 2 out of 5 sets of 4 kits. So, they get to choose 8 kits out of a possible 20.

And they get to keep their utility skills. And the skills from those “kits” are generally better (many of our kits have nerfed versions of ele skills).

It is really difficult to overstate how much flexibility and offensive/defensive power we give up by having only 1 weapon slot. A 1 Kit engineer has fewer skills, overall, than say a mesmer. Moreover, the mesmer skills are generally much more powerful and/or have much more utillity than most engineer builds.

In a game consisting of nothing but hybrid classes, we are the only class that pays hybrid tax. And we aren’t even the most versatile of the hybrids. Or the most powerful in offense or deffense Will a good engineer prevail over a mediocre ele? Sure, but a good player from profession x will always prevail over a mediocre player from profession y.

I only read the first 20 posts before nearly passing out, but I’ll point this out for those regarding engineer as weak in sPvP:

Engineer is incredibly solid there. It’s just mesmers are fairly overpowered at the moment, and guardians are incredibly difficult to ‘control’ with their long-duration stability abuse, and several, unnecessary blocks (and the needless nerf to grenades, it was our solid method of fighting off thieves, but now the autos do kitten-all, so bomb kit is now the anti-thief measure).

I suppose rangers give me issue too if they’re good. But only because troll unguent heals so much, and they have far too may abilities that make the word “EVASION” repeatedly pop up in succession. It’s quite irksome.

I don’t understand how you can be such a veteran of mmos but still be so bad at playing an engi. I seldom lose 1v1s (okay, good mesmers and REALLY GOOD necros are an exception), plain and simple. I’ve killed multiple commanders in wvw in 1v1s without even having full exotics. The two i remember most clearly were a human guardian and a charr warrior. I know the human’s account name was “white tiger” from prx when they were on sos, and the charr was from sbi. The guardian was a challenge, but the warrior was an absolute faceroll.

P/P is the best imo (it’s what i use) but i could probably be just as successful with a rifle power build. the class is fine, it’s just the fact that some skills, such as turrets, need some serious buffs. I just ignore the relatively underpowered stuff and go for the bad kitten builds which match up to or surpass those of other professions.