Guild Wars 2

Here is the opinion of another veteran engineer. Looks like we are on the same page.

Specterryu Quipter.8412:

Before I get the L2P comments, let me mention that I have over 900 hours on the Engineer, and done everything with this class (Legendary, map completion, SPVP, WvWvW, etc). This is a collection of all the gripes I have had. This thread will discuss the shortcomings of the Engineer and how it can be improved upon. I will give my honest opinion on each skill and weapon’s attacks. I will not be commentating on race abilities. Feel free to comment, and express your opinions, but keep it clean and constructive.

For his comments see: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Shortcomings-of-the-Engineer/first#post1256815

I’ve been leveling up a warrior, and couldn’t help but notice the disparity between the warrior’s rifle skills, and the engineer’s rifle skills, finding that the warrior’s rifle base skills have baked-in elements that an engineer is required to trait for.

For example the warrior rifle #1 Skill has a base 1200 range, has a 100% chance to cause bleeding for 6 seconds, and has a 20% chance to be a projectile finisher. The engineer’s #3 skill has a 100% bleeding component, but it is most effective at 100 range. To get bleeding out of our #1 auto-attack skill we must spec into firearms, and even then there is only a 30% chance to inflict bleeding on crits. Moreover, we must trait into firearms to achieve the base 1200 range. The warrior has a similar trait that causes bleeding on crit, only there is a 33% chance to bleed. Yes it is only a 3% increase over the engineer, but every % does matter when factoring RNG.

So the warrior, with inherent advantages in both HP and Armor can inflict a condition on an auto attack from 1200 range with 100% certainty, and the engineer has only a 30% chance to inflict bleeding on auto-attack and must trait to get it to 1200 range, or alternatively be required to stand within 400 range of the target to add a bleed. Seems counter-intuitive to me considering the fact that the engineer has a smaller base health-pool, and armor.

Warrior’s #2 rifle skill has a 100% chance to add a cripple, versus engineer’s net shot, which is fantastic… when it lands. I don’t have any hard numbers, but I miss with net shot from 1,000 range as much if not more than I hit it. I would rather have a 100% chance to cripple, than a spotty chance to immobilize any day of the week.

Warrior rifle#3, 1200 range big damage shot v. engineer’s 100-400 range big damage shot. Which would you rather have?

Warrior #3 From 1200 range 100% chance to inflict vulnerability v. engineer that must trait to get a 50% chance to apply vulnerability on rifle crits, and the warrior also has this exact same trait.

Engineer #3 does have a great CC knockdown component (which I love)… that also cc’s us (which I don’t) v Warrior’s #5 that also has a knock-back on a 15 sec cool-down, that has no self-cc component. Which would you rather have?

Engineer’s number 5 has vulnerability but the animation delay makes it easy to avoid unless the target is cc’d.

Lastly the warrior has the dreaded 1500 range kill shot, which has an easily noticeable animation that makes it easy to avoid if noticed, but from 1500 range good luck noticing it. It is akin to a sniper’s “boom headshot”, and is one of the biggest QQ skills in the game.

As for the traits, either of the warrior’s top tiered traits (XI – adrenaline from crits for more killshots if you are doing wall defense or XII – 4 secs of quickness when target under 25%, w/ 90 second cool-down i.e., an execute when roving) in Arms have immediate application to the rifle, whereas neither of the engineer’s top tiered traits in firearms (where the other rifle traits are) have anything to do with improving your rifle (one applies to flamethrower, the other to pistols).

As for the engineer’s other rifle traits, as stated above you must trait to get 1200 range, an additional 10% damage, and a 20% reduction on rifle cool-downs (with no added bonus). The warrior also has to trait to get a 20% reduction in rifle cool-downs, but in so doing rifle shots pierce (just like the engineer’s). Moreover, warrior get a trait that increases bleed duration by 50% that results in a 10% damage increase to bleeding foes if you spec 25 points into arms. Your target will almost always be bleeding due to the 9 second traited bleed on your auto attack that is easily reapplied (i.e., from auto-attack).

What is also better about the ranged warrior is that for close quarter combat they can swap weapons which do incredible damage, and have amazing escapability, crowd control, damage, or defense without having to sacrifice a utility slot.

So here is the bottom line, if you are looking to play a ranged rifle profession in WvW, that can also stand toe to doe from mele range the warrior simply does it better than the engineeer in virtually every way.

…And mind you, there are only two professions that have access to rifle in this game.

If you want to use a rifle, which would you pick?

I come from Necro…I’m not scared trust me lol. I rolled an engi today, already used my cof tokens to buy him some gear so now I have a reason to learn it and keep playing it lol. Even if it does underperform as badly as everyone says, as long as I can find some fun in it, that’s what matters. I mean hell, look at me with my necro main. I find ways to make it work, and when I can’t make it work, well that’s what alts are for, or I can go read a book :-P

MrSilver.5269:

…And mind you, there are only two professions that have access to rifle in this game.

If you want to use a rifle, which would you pick?

I’d pick warrior if all I wanted to do was to use the rifle and melee, but I enjoy the versatility and different play styles the engineer allows me. It does seem kind of stupid for a game to give a tank class the ability to do very good ranged damage.

MrSilver.5269:

I’ve been leveling up a warrior, and couldn’t help but notice the disparity between the warrior’s rifle skills, and the engineer’s rifle skills, finding that the warrior’s rifle base skills have baked-in elements that an engineer is required to trait for.

For example the warrior rifle #1 Skill has a base 1200 range, has a 100% chance to cause bleeding for 6 seconds, and has a 20% chance to be a projectile finisher. The engineer’s #3 skill has a 100% bleeding component, but it is most effective at 100 range.

That #3 skill is also AoE for Engineer. It is clear that you re trying to proclaim warrior rifle skills superior to the engineers. That is no excuse to “conveniently” leave facts out in an honest comparison. Your entire post is riddle with fallacies, inaccuracies, and misleading misinformation. You for example, also neglect that our rifle hip shots innately pierce. Just hitting 2 enemies with our number one skill more the dominates the bleed effect warriors have from theirs. You leave so many facts out about both warrior and engineer rifle skills, it is as if you have never really experienced either.

These are the kind of inaccuracies that would appear suspiciously over bias to me if I was a dev reading this thread. Making it hard to take seriously. Other then the entirely trollish title of the thread and the ridiculously troll original post that is.

MrSilver.5269:

I’ve been leveling up a warrior, and couldn’t help but notice the disparity between the warrior’s rifle skills, and the engineer’s rifle skills, finding that the warrior’s rifle base skills have baked-in elements that an engineer is required to trait for.

So here is the bottom line, if you are looking to play a ranged rifle profession in WvW, that can also stand toe to doe from mele range the warrior simply does it better than the engineeer in virtually every way.

…And mind you, there are only two professions that have access to rifle in this game.

If you want to use a rifle, which would you pick?

Completely agree, thanks for breaking it down. This was one of the most informative of the posts I’ve seen. Only tried rifle warrior on low levels in pve, was immediately disgusted at the immediate differences and enormous survivability advantages. As far as the engineer is concerned, it amazes me more and more, that the most militant of classes by modern standards that uses the closest to 20th century war weaponry can remain so weak and require so much more traiting and still can’t come close to what the other classes take for granted.

tigirius.9014:

Only tried rifle warrior on low levels in pve, was immediately disgusted at the immediate differences and enormous survivability advantages.

You mean how the warriors rifle #1 skills, skill-specific coefficient is almost 40% less then the engineer? I have all profession to 80, and have played sPvP, WvE and played a good deal of dungeons and DE’s in PvE with all of them. One thing I can tell you is, your just wrong if you try to claim to be able to judge a profesion at low levels and compare it to your 80 in exotics.

Warriors volley skill-specific coefficient is 232 per shot, while blunderbuss is 386-618 depending on range with a 4s bleed.

Warriors #4, brutal shots skill-specific coefficient is 193 while engineers overcharge is 386.

Warriors #5 rifle butt (melee range) skill-specific coefficient is 386 compared to engineers jump shot of 348 on launch and and 696 on landing.

If you really want to compare the two, take them to the mist in matching gear and compare the damage. Our rifle dwarfs the warriors.

I suggest against using assumption, unequal comparisons, and presumptions as you have so far and use more testing, mathematical comparison and facts. That leads to much more informed discussions.

My biggest beef with the Engineer is it doesn’t really seem to excel anywhere.

Turrets, like Necro minions, suffer from attracting every mob in a 10 mile radius to attack them over any other target and have huge cool downs regardless. Even fully spec’d they rarely can survive anything outside of a 1 mob encounter. Conditions were nerfed prior to release and have simply never been made viable as a result. You’ll always be a subpar source of condition damage. Support wise we’re barely in the same league as a Guardian or Elementalist and certainly isn’t something we’re ahead of by comparison. Ranged damage wise we’re pretty decent with Grenades admittedly but they suffer from huge issues with the fact they’re ground targeted, easy to avoid and my hands hurt after playing with them for a few hours (haha).

At best case scenario a player will “make do” with the Engineer. They won’t be 100% worthless but nor will they really excel at anything. Kinda sad because anything you really aim to do with the Engineer there’s already another class that does it far better.

coglin.1496:

MrSilver.5269:

I’ve been leveling up a warrior, and couldn’t help but notice the disparity between the warrior’s rifle skills, and the engineer’s rifle skills, finding that the warrior’s rifle base skills have baked-in elements that an engineer is required to trait for.

For example the warrior rifle #1 Skill has a base 1200 range, has a 100% chance to cause bleeding for 6 seconds, and has a 20% chance to be a projectile finisher. The engineer’s #3 skill has a 100% bleeding component, but it is most effective at 100 range.

That #3 skill is also AoE for Engineer. It is clear that you re trying to proclaim warrior rifle skills superior to the engineers. That is no excuse to “conveniently” leave facts out in an honest comparison. Your entire post is riddle with fallacies, inaccuracies, and misleading misinformation. You for example, also neglect that our rifle hip shots innately pierce. Just hitting 2 enemies with our number one skill more the dominates the bleed effect warriors have from theirs. You leave so many facts out about both warrior and engineer rifle skills, it is as if you have never really experienced either.

These are the kind of inaccuracies that would appear suspiciously over bias to me if I was a dev reading this thread. Making it hard to take seriously. Other then the entirely trollish title of the thread and the ridiculously troll original post that is.

You neglect that for a mere 20 points the warrior gets a trait that not only adds piercing to all warrior rifle skills, but decreases rifle skill cooldowns by 20%.

coglin.1496:

tigirius.9014:

Only tried rifle warrior on low levels in pve, was immediately disgusted at the immediate differences and enormous survivability advantages.

You mean how the warriors rifle #1 skills, skill-specific coefficient is almost 40% less then the engineer? I have all profession to 80, and have played sPvP, WvE and played a good deal of dungeons and DE’s in PvE with all of them. One thing I can tell you is, your just wrong if you try to claim to be able to judge a profesion at low levels and compare it to your 80 in exotics.

Warriors volley skill-specific coefficient is 232 per shot, while blunderbuss is 386-618 depending on range with a 4s bleed.

Warriors #4, brutal shots skill-specific coefficient is 193 while engineers overcharge is 386.

Warriors #5 rifle butt (melee range) skill-specific coefficient is 386 compared to engineers jump shot of 348 on launch and and 696 on landing.

If you really want to compare the two, take them to the mist in matching gear and compare the damage. Our rifle dwarfs the warriors.

I suggest against using assumption, unequal comparisons, and presumptions as you have so far and use more testing, mathematical comparison and facts. That leads to much more informed discussions.

This seems to be a fairly biased comparison. You’re intentionally leaving out the facts that warriors have kill shot (which hits like a truck towing a boat loaded with trucks), that warrior rifle 3 shoots 5 shots, that warrior rifle 4 is guaranteed projectile finisher and increases all further damage on the target by an additional 5%, and that the warrior rifle 2 does damage.

I wouldn’t exactly say that our rifle dwarfs theirs.

I do not consider 2/7 of trait point investment as “mere”. I fail to how it is unreasonable for a weapon to be better for another profession after investing 20 trait points. Your argument here is illogical to me.

Otherwise, I am unclear how I am being biased by not including profession specific F key abilities. In a static comparison of weapons skills. That poses no more logic then other profession claiming the devs need to look at our utility skills because comparable skills from their class to those of engineers are imbalanced because of tool belt skills.

Nay of the Ether.8913:

I come from Necro…I’m not scared trust me lol. I rolled an engi today, already used my cof tokens to buy him some gear so now I have a reason to learn it and keep playing it lol. Even if it does underperform as badly as everyone says, as long as I can find some fun in it, that’s what matters. I mean hell, look at me with my necro main. I find ways to make it work, and when I can’t make it work, well that’s what alts are for, or I can go read a book :-P

The problem you will run into is that you end up having two modes.

“Somewhat effective and really, really bad gameplay”
“Extremely Ineffective but ok gameplay”

Kodiak.3281:

My biggest beef with the Engineer is it doesn’t really seem to excel anywhere.

Bingo. An engie does everything… poorly. And if he tries really hard, he can ascend in a singular endeavor to the status of… mediocrity…

Why play anything else?

engineers can be very powerful dungeon support characters, can easily win 1v1s (stop with this crap about having to put in more effort. I suck at this game and i win way more 1v1s than i lose as an engi), have the ability to tank better than just about anyone, and can get nice bursts (i think glass is a horrible way to go no matter the class, but it’s an option). The only possible problem i can see with this class is a bit of weakness in some gadgets and turrets, and the bugs, most of which aren’t that bad.

But hey, if anet decides to give in to these empty complaints, i’ll take a few free buffs on behalf of my misinformed classmates.

coglin.1496:

I do not consider 2/7 of trait point investment as “mere”. I fail to how it is unreasonable for a weapon to be better for another profession after investing 20 trait points. Your argument here is illogical to me.

Otherwise, I am unclear how I am being biased by not including profession specific F key abilities. In a static comparison of weapons skills. That poses no more logic then other profession claiming the devs need to look at our utility skills because comparable skills from their class to those of engineers are imbalanced because of tool belt skills.

I say “mere” because the trait is ridiculously powerful and in my opinion should be a 30 point trait. For a similar point investment the engineer can choose to increase our damage by 10% or have a 50% chance to inflict blindness on crit, both of which are fairly lacking. These of course are only the traits that apply specifically to rifles. The full list of traits that an engineer has access to at 20 firearms are as follows:

Adept Knee Shot Cripple targets for 5 seconds whenever you immobilize them. (Cooldown: 5 seconds)

Adept Sitting Duck Immobilizing a foe also applies 5 stacks of vulnerability (8 seconds) to them.

Adept Infused Precision 50% chance to gain swiftness for 5 seconds on critical hits. This effect cannot trigger more than once every 5 seconds.

Adept Rifled Barrels Improves rifle, pistol, harpoon gun, and elixir gun range.

Adept Precise Sights 50% chance to cause vulnerability on critical hits

Adept Hair Trigger Rifle, pistol, and harpoon gun skills recharge 20% faster.

Master Napalm Specialist Burns you apply last 20% longer.

Master Fireforged Trigger Flamethrower and elixir gun skills recharge 20% faster.

Master Rifle Mod Improves damage for the rifle and harpoon gun by 10%.

Master Go for the Eyes Critical hits with the rifle have a 50% chance to inflict blindness for 5 seconds. This effect cannot trigger more than once every 10 seconds.

These of course are in addition to the minor traits Sharpshooter and Target the Weak, which give a 30% chance to cause bleeding on critical and a 10% increased crit chance against opponents not moving respectively.

I feel it is necessary to include Kill Shot because the warrior mechanic is effectively an extra weapon skill. The warrior has kill shot by virtue of being a warrior with a rifle and has it whether or not he brings anything else to the fight. To compare weapons between classes it is only fair to consider everything the weapon gives to each class.

coglin.1496:

tigirius.9014:

Only tried rifle warrior on low levels in pve, was immediately disgusted at the immediate differences and enormous survivability advantages.

You mean how the warriors rifle #1 skills, skill-specific coefficient is almost 40% less then the engineer? I have all profession to 80, and have played sPvP, WvE and played a good deal of dungeons and DE’s in PvE with all of them. One thing I can tell you is, your just wrong if you try to claim to be able to judge a profesion at low levels and compare it to your 80 in exotics.

Warriors volley skill-specific coefficient is 232 per shot, while blunderbuss is 386-618 depending on range with a 4s bleed.

Warriors #4, brutal shots skill-specific coefficient is 193 while engineers overcharge is 386.

Warriors #5 rifle butt (melee range) skill-specific coefficient is 386 compared to engineers jump shot of 348 on launch and and 696 on landing.

If you really want to compare the two, take them to the mist in matching gear and compare the damage. Our rifle dwarfs the warriors.

I suggest against using assumption, unequal comparisons, and presumptions as you have so far and use more testing, mathematical comparison and facts. That leads to much more informed discussions.

Maybe you missed the entire post or something so here is the link for it. It’s right here in the same thread. Oh and don’t pretend that it’s not more powerful on the warrior side we both know that’s not true. The math speaks for itself. Just because you have a niche build that works in pvp well that you don’t want them messing with doesn’t mean they can’t make major improvements on this class starting with the only two weapons we have.

Heres the link to the guy who broke it down for us since you don’t seem to know what you’re talking about:

HERE IT IS

It amazes me how many people can not see the obvious problems with this class and claim “everything is fine, nothing to see here folks, move along” or attack others for pointing out what most people with common sense see easily, notably when the people who see the problems have played other classes and notice the disparity immediately.

Oh and btw, they separated the damage for pve and pvp. Everything works differently in the mists then it does in pve zones. So comparing them in the mists won’t show you the difference. But feel free to go watch warriors run thru enemies with ease in Orr.

Or my personal favorite, watch the video on youtube about a warrior with a rifle and a two handed sword run the Arah dungeon by himself because that’s balanced right.

MrSilver.5269:

If you want to use a rifle, which would you pick?

Yeah.

Currently if you want to play a firearms-flavoured class with some gadgets you’d better roll a charr warrior or thief.

You’ll still get that engineer-ish feel, while playing a completed profession. Instead of a mess called “Engineer”.

tigirius.9014:

Maybe you missed the entire post or something so here is the link for it. It’s right here in the same thread. Oh and don’t pretend that it’s not more powerful on the warrior side we both know that’s not true. The math speaks for itself. Just because you have a niche build that works in pvp well that you don’t want them messing with doesn’t mean they can’t make major improvements on this class starting with the only two weapons we have.

Maybe you missed the post or something, but it has been proven time and time again with a little thing called math, that the engineer rifle skills solidly out damage the warrior ones in a straight comparison. Posters have been proving that here in threads since august. Sorry, but your opinionated claims do not trump math and fact in the real world sir.

I can repost the damage coefficients of each skill, and post the damage calculating equations , again, if you like. I can step by step walk you through the math of that equation if you like.

An Engineer does good damage with his rifle in (essentially) melee. I think he is talking about damage skills from 1200 range in particular, which probably hasn’t been properly specified up to this point.

Truthfully it’s not a very good comparison, since the rifle is functionally more similar to something like the warriors greatsword in terms of usage. Gap closer/escape, short range damage dealing abilities, a ranged cripple/immobilze. I think the complaint in this case is that an engineer’s rifle doesn’t do particularly good damage when used at 1200 range since the auto attack is all you have.

IMO if you want to kill things at 1200+ range you are always better off with nades than trying to squeeze damage out of pistol or rifle autoattack anyway, albeit coated bullets can make things interesting there.

Engineer rifle is basically a weak melee weapon, with only 2 skills that sort of work at anything approaching range. It also has a really nasty self CC, a gap closer which often opens the gap further because it’s so badly animated, and a rooting skill that mostly works on things that are asleep, or already rooted.

Most of engineers defenses work against melee opponents who don’t have stability.
Without getting bogged down in skill details, this is generally how I determine if a class is good:

- how much damage it can deal
- how much healing it can do
- how much CC it can do
- how much of this CC will work on people/bosses who are resistant to CC
- recharges on all of this
- how many uncounterable defenses do I have
- how many defenses will worke while CCed
- how many different effects can I do
- how much time does it take to field my abilities (do I have abilities/proc that are casted/happen while doing other abilties?)
- how much of this can I fit into one build

Engineer scores pretty badly, mostly because he has tons of chaff skills (irrelevant “me too” skills that just add a bit of something) that just take time from more important skills.

An example: Rocket turret toolbelt skill, does about 150% rifle autoattack damage. Takes about the same time to cast, so I cast it instead of autoattacking. It doesn’t involve any decision making, it’s just 50% extra damage over an autoattack every x seconds if I remember to press F3 on recharge. That is a bad skill, it’s total chaff, doesn’t add anything to the class.

An example of good time compression (abilities/procs happening while doing something else) is ele who buffs/damages while switching attuenement while casting other things. Another example is mesmer shatters which can be used while casting other skills.

An example of uncounterable defenses is invuls, blocks, invis, jumps/blinks (vs melee), movement blockers (guardian line and ring that prevent crossing). Engineer is kitten poor in this department.

For instance on my mesmer when stunned I can use any of 4 shatters, 1 being a daze and 1 being an invul, 2 stun breakers one with invis and one with blink, and blink on my staff and chaos armor (protection boon, chance of blinding on hit).
Blink and blink with staff work even against immobilize (even when combined with a stun).

With engineer, I might have a stun breaker in my build. Pretty much nobody slots more than 1. Against immobilize you’re pretty much a sitting duck.

Things like that really detract from his viability. If you’re ranged/have stability you’ve pretty much defeated an engineer, because his defenses are his (mostly anti-melee) CCs. Bosses and warriors with stability stance don’t care about your knockbacks.

Another example of ability that looks good on paper is Medkit… so much healing and utility (cond removal, fury, swiftness) but in reality it just takes too much time to cast all the abilities, so you cast just some of them. Same goes for most 2 or 3 kit builds. You don’t really cast all the abilities in kits, there’s just no time.

And this is just one example. I’m too lazy to describe all the ways in which engineer is inferior to pretty much everyone else (can’t do kitten about boon stackers, turrets are crap, grenades do more single target damage than everything else. Nades and bombs do lots of condition damage, but since they are your only bet for doing power damage, you won’t spec cond dmg anyway, and many many more).

If you’re gonna play this class, here’s my advice… stick to WvW and stick to nades.

The whole “no-weapon swap you have kits” idea is a failed design. Most people would be fine with 2 weapon sets. And you can still have kits. But right now, every build pretty much has to take a kit, which really bites if you want to run a gadget or elixir or a turret build.
If engineer had 2 weapons/kits by default, that would really open up more builds.

MrSilver.5269:

I’ve been leveling up a warrior, and couldn’t help but notice the disparity between the warrior’s rifle skills, and the engineer’s rifle skills, finding that the warrior’s rifle base skills have baked-in elements that an engineer is required to trait for.

For example the warrior rifle #1 Skill has a base 1200 range, has a 100% chance to cause bleeding for 6 seconds, and has a 20% chance to be a projectile finisher. The engineer’s #3 skill has a 100% bleeding component, but it is most effective at 100 range. To get bleeding out of our #1 auto-attack skill we must spec into firearms, and even then there is only a 30% chance to inflict bleeding on crits. Moreover, we must trait into firearms to achieve the base 1200 range. The warrior has a similar trait that causes bleeding on crit, only there is a 33% chance to bleed. Yes it is only a 3% increase over the engineer, but every % does matter when factoring RNG.

So the warrior, with inherent advantages in both HP and Armor can inflict a condition on an auto attack from 1200 range with 100% certainty, and the engineer has only a 30% chance to inflict bleeding on auto-attack and must trait to get it to 1200 range, or alternatively be required to stand within 400 range of the target to add a bleed. Seems counter-intuitive to me considering the fact that the engineer has a smaller base health-pool, and armor.

Warrior’s #2 rifle skill has a 100% chance to add a cripple, versus engineer’s net shot, which is fantastic… when it lands. I don’t have any hard numbers, but I miss with net shot from 1,000 range as much if not more than I hit it. I would rather have a 100% chance to cripple, than a spotty chance to immobilize any day of the week.

Warrior rifle#3, 1200 range big damage shot v. engineer’s 100-400 range big damage shot. Which would you rather have?

Warrior #3 From 1200 range 100% chance to inflict vulnerability v. engineer that must trait to get a 50% chance to apply vulnerability on rifle crits, and the warrior also has this exact same trait.

Engineer #3 does have a great CC knockdown component (which I love)… that also cc’s us (which I don’t) v Warrior’s #5 that also has a knock-back on a 15 sec cool-down, that has no self-cc component. Which would you rather have?

Engineer’s number 5 has vulnerability but the animation delay makes it easy to avoid unless the target is cc’d.

Lastly the warrior has the dreaded 1500 range kill shot, which has an easily noticeable animation that makes it easy to avoid if noticed, but from 1500 range good luck noticing it. It is akin to a sniper’s “boom headshot”, and is one of the biggest QQ skills in the game.

As for the traits, either of the warrior’s top tiered traits (XI – adrenaline from crits for more killshots if you are doing wall defense or XII – 4 secs of quickness when target under 25%, w/ 90 second cool-down i.e., an execute when roving) in Arms have immediate application to the rifle, whereas neither of the engineer’s top tiered traits in firearms (where the other rifle traits are) have anything to do with improving your rifle (one applies to flamethrower, the other to pistols).

As for the engineer’s other rifle traits, as stated above you must trait to get 1200 range, an additional 10% damage, and a 20% reduction on rifle cool-downs (with no added bonus). The warrior also has to trait to get a 20% reduction in rifle cool-downs, but in so doing rifle shots pierce (just like the engineer’s). Moreover, warrior get a trait that increases bleed duration by 50% that results in a 10% damage increase to bleeding foes if you spec 25 points into arms. Your target will almost always be bleeding due to the 9 second traited bleed on your auto attack that is easily reapplied (i.e., from auto-attack).

What is also better about the ranged warrior is that for close quarter combat they can swap weapons which do incredible damage, and have amazing escapability, crowd control, damage, or defense without having to sacrifice a utility slot.

So here is the bottom line, if you are looking to play a ranged rifle profession in WvW, that can also stand toe to doe from mele range the warrior simply does it better than the engineeer in virtually every way.

…And mind you, there are only two professions that have access to rifle in this game.

If you want to use a rifle, which would you pick?

The truth is strong in this rage post. But I have faith in ArenaNet GW1 wasn’t perfect but they made it quite great, it took some patience and some positive creative criticism.

ManCaptain.3154:

For instance on my mesmer when stunned I can use any of 4 shatters, 1 being a daze and 1 being an invul, 2 stun breakers one with invis and one with blink, and blink on my staff and chaos armor (protection boon, chance of blinding on hit).
Blink and blink with staff work even against immobilize (even when combined with a stun).

With engineer, I might have a stun breaker in my build. Pretty much nobody slots more than 1. Against immobilize you’re pretty much a sitting duck.

While I spend most of my time on the engi forums arguing with those who deem it necessary to tell everyone engi is fine and they just need to l2p—I couldn’t help but hop in to give you some immobilize advice. You probably already know that kit refinement elixir gun will instant-cleanse 1 condition. So does refinement flamethrower. Not to mention you can take cloaking device or just gear shield while immobilized. I’d say engi vs immobilize is pretty middle-of-the-road (although, of course, not nearly as good as mesmers or eles).

I do agree that engineers are one of the worst two professions at dealing with incoming hard cc. We just don’t have stability or any possible way to take more than 1 stunbreak.

Don’t know what to say to you…. but if you ever played a mesmer or a thief, then when you’ll play an engineer and people will start piling CC and their bullkitten combos on you, you’ll die a little bit inside. Just so much easier to avoid whatever they throw at you if you can stunbreak+blink with a single click. Sure you might be able to cleanse that immobilize, but what if an elem slams into you launching you then combos that into another cc… etc… if they have their CC+damage chain thought out, you are in real danger.

2 more things:
1. I hate taking Toolkit just so I have a shield skill. Apart from using magnet now and then, I really have no use for it in most builds. It also takes more time to respond with it in those twitch split second situations because you usually also have to switch into the kit.

2. Cloaking device is really bad. Going invis won’t stop players from piling damage on top of you. It really only works in pve, and even there, if you’re solo it will reset the mob. Against players pretty much any other buff but invis would work better when immobilized. Against players I’d rather invest in things that counter CC, like prot on CC. Engineer really needs more abilities that can be activated while stunned.

Seriously, who the hell from ANet thought: you know what really helps when opponents make you immovable? Invisibility. They’ll never figure out what empty space to swing their sword at!!

I really like cloaking device. the stealth duration is generally greater than the immobilize allowing you to move around and reposition yourself; due to delays in rendering, you will appear slightly later on your opponents screen as well. Lastly, not all skills can be swung at empty spaces, a great deal of them require targeting.

Maskaganda.2043:

I really like cloaking device. the stealth duration is generally greater than the immobilize allowing you to move around and reposition yourself; due to delays in rendering, you will appear slightly later on your opponents screen as well. Lastly, not all skills can be swung at empty spaces, a great deal of them require targeting.

Cloacking device is very much useless in pvp, since immobilize happens mostly during active battles, meaning you get immobilized —> in the heat you use an offensive ability ( or evn autoattack) —> stealth goes down immidiatelly. This trait is only usefull when you’re running from someone, and they try to snare you.

I didn’t read the whole topic ( only the most important posts), but i agree with the general concept. If you want to play pvp, absolutelly do not roll an engineer, there are classes that are better with that engineer can do. If you want to go conditions, go necro, if pure damage, go thief, deception and very hard to kill → mesmer, bunker —> ele( or guardian), engineer is the very low version of all these other professions, he can do it, he just can’t do it that efficiently.

Atm the only viable build for pvp seems to be 100nades, but today’s patch notes will clearly take care of that, and there will be no more reasons to play engi in pvp.

I got to rank 30 with my engineer, got sick of it, rerolled thief, and im vey much satisfied, because thief can do so much better.

ManCaptain.3154:

Don’t know what to say to you…. but if you ever played a mesmer or a thief, then when you’ll play an engineer and people will start piling CC and their bullkitten combos on you, you’ll die a little bit inside. Just so much easier to avoid whatever they throw at you if you can stunbreak+blink with a single click. Sure you might be able to cleanse that immobilize, but what if an elem slams into you launching you then combos that into another cc… etc… if they have their CC+damage chain thought out, you are in real danger.

2 more things:
1. I hate taking Toolkit just so I have a shield skill. Apart from using magnet now and then, I really have no use for it in most builds. It also takes more time to respond with it in those twitch split second situations because you usually also have to switch into the kit.

2. Cloaking device is really bad. Going invis won’t stop players from piling damage on top of you. It really only works in pve, and even there, if you’re solo it will reset the mob. Against players pretty much any other buff but invis would work better when immobilized. Against players I’d rather invest in things that counter CC, like prot on CC. Engineer really needs more abilities that can be activated while stunned.

Seriously, who the hell from ANet thought: you know what really helps when opponents make you immovable? Invisibility. They’ll never figure out what empty space to swing their sword at!!

As I said, I consider the engineer tied for worst in dealing with incoming hard cc, maybe THE worst. The greatest challenge of the engineer is figuring out how to make use of all those lame skills so you can access the ones you really want—for example, I want gear shield but I get five other weaker skills with it. Is there are way to create a build that can use those other five? That’s the insane challenge that is engineer right now. And yes, since we can’t really break out of the cc train once it starts, protection on cc is super useful.

Concerning cloaking device: I didn’t say it was ALWAYS useful. In fact, I think I just said that engineers were middle-of-the-pack when it comes to dealing with immobilize. We’re certainly worse than the four meta professions, but I think we’re the best of the non-meta professions.

“Engineer
Removed collision from engineer turrets that were causing player pathing issues.
Elixir X: Fixed a bug where this skill’s tooltip did not reflect the cooldown reduction from Fast-Acting Elixirs.
Hair Trigger: Fixed a bug which prevented this trait from working correctly for some skills.
Healing Turret: Fixed issues with this skill’s description when the Deployable Turrets trait was equipped.
Incendiary Ammo: The number of uses on this skill’s effect will now decrease if an attack lands or if the attack is negated by Blind, Block, Evade, Obstructed, or
Invulnerable.
Reinforced Shield: Fixed a bug which prevented this trait from reducing Static Shield’s cooldown if the Throw Shield skill was activated.
Reserve Mines: This trait’s area-of-effect rings now display the appropriate area that they can be triggered at.
Speedy Gadgets: Fixed a bug that prevented this trait from reducing the cooldown of Throw Mine.
Toss Elixir S: This skill will no longer remove transforms from players."

Also:

After testing in wvw for a bit I noticed there is almost no change in damage and healing with kits on. Weapon damage to kits would have been a better step imo but alteast we didnt get nerfed.

Time to finish my warrior.

Why won’t they do something about us?!? Fark!!!!!!

ManCaptain.3154:

Don’t know what to say to you…. but if you ever played a mesmer or a thief, then when you’ll play an engineer and people will start piling CC and their bullkitten combos on you, you’ll die a little bit inside. Just so much easier to avoid whatever they throw at you if you can stunbreak+blink with a single click. Sure you might be able to cleanse that immobilize, but what if an elem slams into you launching you then combos that into another cc… etc… if they have their CC+damage chain thought out, you are in real danger.

2 more things:
1. I hate taking Toolkit just so I have a shield skill. Apart from using magnet now and then, I really have no use for it in most builds. It also takes more time to respond with it in those twitch split second situations because you usually also have to switch into the kit.

2. Cloaking device is really bad. Going invis won’t stop players from piling damage on top of you. It really only works in pve, and even there, if you’re solo it will reset the mob. Against players pretty much any other buff but invis would work better when immobilized. Against players I’d rather invest in things that counter CC, like prot on CC. Engineer really needs more abilities that can be activated while stunned.

Seriously, who the hell from ANet thought: you know what really helps when opponents make you immovable? Invisibility. They’ll never figure out what empty space to swing their sword at!!

fundamentally i agree with you tho to compare us to ele,thief,mesmer,or to a guardian we fail in every aspect so its not a fair comparison.
but i have some issues with what you said.

1)toolkit is a great kit and all five of its skills are useful aside from the obvious shield block, magnet is amazing don`t forget they nerfed our ft 5 skill backdraft that did exactly the same thing with added dmg because it was “op”.
you can pull ppl from points,stop res/stomps ,stop fleeing ppl (most of the time its thiefs/ele) ,stop a cast,if you run p/p pull for a pry bar & Blowtorch combo ect ect.

use box of nails for kiting,or to escape,use on points for conditions(aoe cripple is not the worst thing in the world i hope you agree nvm the bleed).
pry bar hit hard(in engineer scale ofc) and adds confusion which is great if a someone is up in your face.
auto attack gives vulnerability(well not that you ever use the skill or stack it but still).

using gear shield is more to predict things incoming then to react (great for hotjoin ppl that pop every thing in the first second of the fight `cough` d/d ele`s)and dont forget you can swap to a kit when your cc, so if you get caught with no stunbreak switch and prep your gear shield for use to stop whats coming next or just use it to buy some more time for a heal cd to get back up & you can cast it and switch back to the weapon and it wont cancel.
this way you can clutch use it.

2)as for cloaking device i take it in almost every build for a short immobilize its really good only thing that damge me most of the time is a warrior sword f skill.
sure it fails 2 out of 3 times but what engineer skill doesn’t,it frequently fails because to stop our weapon auto attack you need to uninstall the game.
the stealth duration usually is more than the immobilize like Maskaganda said and you can dodge away to a better spot to attack or disengage for a heal or any other cd.
ppl usually immobilize to prepare a burst this screw them over alot.

you may disagree this is just my view.

and i want to add that i want Juggernaut stability back!!! one source for stability that needs a kit and a grandmaster trait is not asking for too much.
and no toss s just don`t cut it.

I don’t care what people say… this class is still the master of mediocrity, it still pales compared to every other class in Guildwars 2..

Dante is really on a negativity post on any topic today huh?

It was Clagget’s turn to look uphappy. “Sir, he’s my boss, and he’s not a bad boss, but he is a little positive in his thinking”.

That was artfully done, Jones thought. not a bad boss… a little positive. He just called his skipper an idiot in a way that no one could ever call disloyal.

From The Sum of all Fears by Tom Clancy.

Dante.1508:

I don’t care what people say… this class is still the master of mediocrity, it still pales compared to every other class in Guildwars 2..

is this aimed at me?
because your preaching to the choir son
hallelujah!

we are jack of no trades master of …well elixir s stomps

Rifle warrior > Rifle Engineer
Melee warrior >> Melee Engineer
Burst warrior >> Burst Engineer
Tank or Support Warrior >>> Tank or Support Engineer
WWW warrior >>>WWW Engineer
PVE warrior >>>> PVE Engineer
(dont playing at sPVP too much, so will not talk about that classes there. And I’m sure, sPVP - it’s just cutted full game, so we must not look at this part of the game)

So, anyway, Warrior > Engineer

This is obvious things, don’t even want to explain it.

I have both of this classes and I know what I’m talking about.

Xplosiv.1503:

Maskaganda.2043:

I really like cloaking device. the stealth duration is generally greater than the immobilize allowing you to move around and reposition yourself; due to delays in rendering, you will appear slightly later on your opponents screen as well. Lastly, not all skills can be swung at empty spaces, a great deal of them require targeting.

Cloacking device is very much useless in pvp, since immobilize happens mostly during active battles, meaning you get immobilized —> in the heat you use an offensive ability ( or evn autoattack) --> stealth goes down immidiatelly. This trait is only usefull when you’re running from someone, and they try to snare you.

If you watch any of Maskaganda’s video you’ll see that you’re very wrong about cloaking device being useless in PvP. If it’s useless for your play style, that’s fine, but other play styles can make good use of it.

Dante.1508:

I don’t care what people say… this class is still the master of mediocrity, it still pales compared to every other class in Guildwars 2..

Amen!

BrimstoneAshe.5043:

If you watch any of Maskaganda’s video you’ll see that you’re very wrong about cloaking device being useless in PvP. If it’s useless for your play style, that’s fine, but other play styles can make good use of it.

The best feeling in the world is getting the 8% transmute proc from the alchemy line to go off on an immobilize. Sure, it almost never happens, but when it does it’s almost too good to be true.

Undoubtedly one of the hardest classes to play. However, 100nades (even with the debuff) seems to perform nicely. I simply drop onto the enemies (Grenade barrage when falling also not exactly required but it is funny watching people freak out) drop the toolbelt skill and swap to grenade kit for yet another grenade barrage. However, everyone is allowed thier own opinions

@Aznhaxx

We’ve pretty much already gone over it. The engineer is very fun. And you can make an engineer work for you in certain situations (100nades in WvW) but a well-built equally played character of another profession is still superior, regardless of how much effort you put into building your engineer. I don’t know what you could disagree with. It’s not really a matter of opinion.

Nobody here wants to insult ANet just for the fun of it. We want this profession to be viable in every aspect of the game – just like ANet does. It isn’t currently. This thread is a good list of some of the problems with engineers.

The problem with engineer is that it just isn’t designed to succeed. As I like to say, it lacks synergy. The abilities do not work together. They do not allow for versatility. They are random. They are not effective. They are inferior. They are bugged. Now, while none of the engineers abilities fail in every way, most of them fail in some small way. When combined together, they create a failed whole – an ineffective profession.

Debating whether or not this is true, is ultimately pointless. In the end, ANet will redesign them and create something much more well-designed and synergistic. Just like they did with the professions that struggled in GW1.

So it has been a few days now since the patch. I’m not feeling any significant change in damage from kits.

What are other people’s thoughts?

yeah same here. still the same for me, still wannabe ele.

While I am enjoying the build I’ve chosen because it doesn’t seem to get touched, and I’m enjoying the ability to not use kits and only use the toolbelt abilities from kits and 1 turret, and I only play pve, I can completely sympathize with the rest of you.

I had high hopes that they would have fixed the glaring issues with this class. They claimed they fixed the miss problems with the cone attacks for example, my FT still misses smh all the mobs have to do is run to the side. Even tho my character is turning to compensate it’s still ridiculous to see. Not to mention the speed on cone attacks other then torch is absolutely horrid and useless.

The speed on pistols still hasn’t been fixed on the engineer or the thief so they’ll continue to fire as slowly as a rifle fires.

While I understand why they made a jump shot, the animation still makes that one of the slowest and most self vul inflicting abilities in the game.

And Quite frankly, they needed to make the grenades #1 target single target explode on impact just like the napalm from the #2 FT ability and all toolbelt abilities.

Even tho they gave them rings, mobs are still able to run all over the top of mines, doesn’t matter which one i use or how low in level the enemies are, it is completely laughable how little damage these mines do and how they do not cripple anything like they should.

They’ve needed to change the toolbelt abilities to make them all a autotarget mechanism so one isn’t fumbling trying to point while dodging or running around, we have seriously too many abilities that we need to point with. One has to use both hands and the right foot to play this class properly one day the devs might realize this hopefully.

Traits for this class don’t work half the time. They are not equal in design or functionality to their leatherwearing counterparts. When will they learn that taking damage isn’t the best system of giving buffs, and giving this class the same “at-50%” trigger for higher final damage output will bring it on par with the thief and ranger.
Meanwhile we’ll continue to be subpar on damage output and meanwhile the broken physics of our skills and the mockery of 20th century war weaponry will continue.

And finally turrets (pretty much all pets) still need a 90% immunity to AOE damage so that the builds that rely on these pets aren’t easily mowed over like they aren’t there….still haven’t learned from the mistakes of past mmo’s yet on many things it seems. Until they take these things seriously this class will remain mediocre.

Engineer, weapons which defying physics only in Tyria. Sad really.

Zonzai.2341:

@Aznhaxx

We’ve pretty much already gone over it. The engineer is very fun. And you can make an engineer work for you in certain situations (100nades in WvW) but a well-built equally played character of another profession is still superior, regardless of how much effort you put into building your engineer. I don’t know what you could disagree with. It’s not really a matter of opinion.

Except, it is a matter of opinion.

Statements like “…a well-built equally played character of another profession is still superior” are sweeping—and inaccurate—generalizations that depend entirely upon how you choose to define “superior.” Without a clear definition, the statement doesn’t have much meaning.

This community has a serious problem conflating “Engi has some problems that could be improved upon” with “Engi is broken and is inferior to every other class in every way!”

Engi is fun (which most people don’t disagree with), and can be effective in every facet of this game. The class has issues, certainly, but they’re slowly being addressed. We’re not in a bad place, and we’re getting better.

is playing a game about being superior or having fun? as maullus put it, wtf is superior anyway?

yes, the game provides goals, like winning in pvp, but the entire point to an mmo is to be massively MULTI player which means that the meat, focus, impetus, whatever you want to call it, of the game is to play in groups of people, not to be a homestar.

engineers are effective and reliable in large group situations because of their ability to change, adapt, and effect change (great and small) in nearly EVERY situation the game throws at you. This is what “versatility” means. Warriors are not versatile compared to engies in ANY way because their builds actually pigeon hole them into roles.

there is nothing more entertaining to watch than a well played engie mid combat. and there is nothing more satisfying than being that engie. your “tax” is the frustration of not being open minded, creative, or skilled enough to look beyond your stat sheet and actually play the game.

you guys don`t need to get stuck on the rhetoric,superior not superior it doesn’t matter.
the point is that as fun as playing engineer is, even with all the bugs,bad traits,fail mechanics,poor skill design ect,the fact (yes fact!) is we get outperform in every role in every platform the game offers by other professions.
now for some people this will make little to no difference but for some this kills 50% of the fun.
the more competitive nature you have the more this sucks for you more be it in pvp or pve.
the second thing that sucks is like nakoda said this is a mmo so if we are outperformed you will get bench, for example in a competitive team play no one will want a bunker engineer if they can get a guardian that will do it 10 times better.
you get the point now.

and nakoda imo engineers are one of the least adaptable professions the most versatile..maybe,but our viable builds do not give us the flexibility to adapt to things.
you want an example for adaptable look at d/d ele`s in a single fight they can burst,hold good sustained damage, do good aoe damage ,tank for some extent,give team support,cc,and be a very mobile roamer, all in one build this is adaptable.
give me one viable build for engineer that can do all that, we can do 1 or 2 things but surely not all of that not effective anyway.
as for versatile they aren’t so much since they can only stray so far from skills/traits/gear and weapons so much before they start to gimp.
as engineers we can play some builds with different weapons and switch traits (10/20 points here and there) get all kinda of skills in the slots ect and not lose the core of the build and not get gimped, and you can make a build for a lot of roles, this is versatile.

cottage.3274:

you guys don`t need to get stuck on the rhetoric,superior not superior it doesn’t matter.
the point is that as fun as playing engineer is, even with all the bugs,bad traits,fail mechanics,poor skill design ect,the fact (yes fact!) is we get outperform in every role in every platform the game offers by other professions.
now for some people this will make little to no difference but for some this kills 50% of the fun.
the more competitive nature you have the more this sucks for you more be it in pvp or pve.
the second thing that sucks is like nakoda said this is a mmo so if we are outperformed you will get bench, for example in a competitive team play no one will want a bunker engineer if they can get a guardian that will do it 10 times better.
you get the point now.

and nakoda imo engineers are one of the least adaptable professions the most versatile..maybe,but our viable builds do not give us the flexibility to adapt to things.
you want an example for adaptable look at d/d ele`s in a single fight they can burst,hold good sustained damage, do good aoe damage ,tank for some extent,give team support,cc,and be a very mobile roamer, all in one build this is adaptable.
give me one viable build for engineer that can do all that, we can do 1 or 2 things but surely not all of that not effective anyway.
as for versatile they aren’t so much since they can only stray so far from skills/traits/gear and weapons so much before they start to gimp.
as engineers we can play some builds with different weapons and switch traits (10/20 points here and there) get all kinda of skills in the slots ect and not lose the core of the build and not get gimped, and you can make a build for a lot of roles, this is versatile.

This means only one: Anet didn’t have good game designers

cottage.3274:

the point is that as fun as playing engineer is, even with all the bugs,bad traits,fail mechanics,poor skill design ect,the fact (yes fact!) is we get outperform in every role in every platform the game offers by other professions.

Emphasis mine.

I don’t think that word means what you think it means.

I see a lot of hyperbole in these discussions, but I don’t see a lot of substantive evidence. Let’s turn to our good friend, modus tollens, and hear what he has to say:

• If the Engineer is inferior to all other classes, then no one will team up with Engineers for tPvP.
• Some people team up with Engineers for tPvP.
• Therefore, the Engineer is not inferior to all other classes.

This doesn’t even address the fact that popular perception and reality are not necessarily the same thing. Some people will certainly buy the hype and say, “Oh, Engi sucks, we don’t want you on our tPvP/dungeon/WvW/group-hug team.” Okie doke. No real loss; I’m always a little bit irrationally afraid that such a level of stupidity just might be contagious, so parting ways really works out best for everyone.

This forum gives such a skewed view of… well, everything…but of the Engineer in particular. Clinging to the belief that Engineers are hopelessly bargled, despite a growing body of evidence that they are not (anecdotal as well as quantifiable) is very strange.

I can say one thing engi definitely gets outperformed in WvWvW roaming/small group raiding. Most of the professions are outperformed in the same area of the game so by no means I am implying engi has it the worst.

If you’re looking at WvWvW roaming/small group raiding, it’s a style of asymmetrical warfare that emphasizes on hit & run. You need to be able to burst down targets and run from large groups. Only a couple of professions are truly capable of this and engi is one of the professions that can’t. The game in this area is so imbalanced that this is strictly who can and who cannot. There isn’t anything in between.

Again, it doesn’t mean engi has it the worst, but I definitely would roll one of the professions that can do it better if WvWvW roaming is what I want to do. (Ok, I already did…) I’m sure I don’t have to say it out loud what the best profs are because they’re mostly all you see in WvWvW roaming…

I’m sure everybody has heroic stories to tell about how you can beat these “best” professions, I know I do. However try that again when you’re fighting a group of 5 of these “best professions” that work together and abuse the system imbalance to the max.

Edit: Oh, and this is strictly WvWvW. PvP and WvWvW are completely different gameplay.

I’ve made one in spite of this thread – 80 full exotic, etc. Most fun class I’ve played so far and is a beast in WvW. You have to look past big numbers and look at the big picture.

Solid class.

Maullus.1273:

I don’t think that word means what you think it means.

but i do know and it is a fact.

let start from the top.

what make a build viable?
one (it mostly people that play at the top lvl in pvp/pve) will have a concept of a build, example: a build to max out your burn.
then he will theorycraft the math to see if the numbers work and maybe sim to see how the theoretical synergy also works.
if this all works then its time to see how this build will pan out in the real gameplay.
if this also works out the build is viable.

now people do this every day not only with engineers but with every profession.
so after you compare 2 viable builds for the same role on different professions you can get the idea of what is more viable then the other.
example: like i said bunker engineer vs bunker guardian.

you can say skill have a big offset here, one can play a viable build and fail and one can succeed.
thats why you need to look at the top players that take the skill to the end of the scale only because you want to be sure that they can minimize the skill offset.

its true that some people can play a engineer (1 or 2 builds for the most part) in the top competitive environment and succeed.
first they are a very very very very small group of people and who knows if they would play a different profession they might succeed more its anybody guess,my guess they will.
this does not mean engineers are fine!, that means in a team that is assembled with 5 very skilled player one of them can have the luxury to play a inferior profession and not in a key role.
again the fact is engineer is somewhat nonexistent in tpvp i can play all day and be the only engineer playing.
the statistics don`t lie this is not imo this is reality and if ppl top players and average players feel and in practice see that engineers don`t cut it(like other professions ele/mesmer/guardian ect) they will not play it.
so you can get the picture why its not a “popular perception” and not 100% “hype”.

as for people not teaming up with engineers first you can still play with a team of friends in a competitive lvl and they can just ask you to switch a profession no biggie or they will just have to do with you as a engineer.
when it comes to pugs in a competitive lvl you will see no one will want to team up with you if its fine by you then great again no biggie.
and this (to our luck) does not happens in the day to day play we do in a semi casual/casual play be it pugs or friends.

if this doesn’t convince you then nothing will and you have all the rights to stick with your perception as long as you don`t belittle people that have a different perception then you.(not saying you are but some people here do).

have a nice weekend