Guild Wars 2

Ok I am looking for a new character profession. I already have an 80 warrior, 80 necro, and 67 ele. I am looking to roll up a medium armor character. But am not sure if engineeer or ranger at this point. Although I am leaning toward an engineer. Some of my concerns are: How usefull in a group? Is the learning curve difficult to pick up? What exactly are kits and how are they different from weapons? Will I instantly be hated by all (like a ranger) simply for being an engineer?

Thanks!

If you consider engi just as an alt.. dont do it engi is full time job man:-) engi is hard to learn and hard to master amazing in party but noobs dont want you in party. That will be all:-) You can run 5x engi dung faster then all those those meta zerk Wars with stealth better then Thief and reflects/heals same as Guard. But be a good engi is hard its not 2 button War what you know from start to finish in one day. Its weeks of practice to be at least decent.

Play one if you like the aesthetic. As far as group utility goes you can pretty much do everything, but our particular strong suit is lots of easily maintained vulnerability (15-20 on champs depending on food). The learning curve is a bit like ele in that it really is the most effective when you learn how to self combo and there really isn’t a press “x” button to win. Unlike ele and their attunement swaps you don’t have a cooldown switching between kits. Which brings me to your question about kits, they function essentially as bundled items (think fgs or warrior banners) in that they replace your weapon skills with their own versions of skills unique to each kit. As far as instantly being hated goes, of course there will always be people who are misinformed and are just try hards who form an opinion of a class based on what they hear. Will you be invited along for record speed clear attempts in the current meta? Probably not, but a well played engi is just as useful as any other class since they have such a variety of tools at their disposal. All in all the best advice I can give you is to make one and take it to the mists and practice on the npc’s there if you want to get a feel for it and decide if you like it (this is especially true since the trait rework because our most “popular” pve builds require being level 80 to use effectively now).