Guild Wars 2

So Necros and Engi’s are the only 2 classes I haven’t tried yet and I’m trying to decide which one to go with, but am leaning more towards Necros. My favorite class at the moment is Guardian, mostly because I ran Ascalon Catacombs last night and actually felt useful. Plus I hate dying all the time like I do on my thief and my Ranger is starting to get kinda boring.

What do Necros bring to dungeons? I’ve heard they are a slow starting class, but eventually build up to something interesting. I’m not much of a PvP person, mostly I just like questing and leveling and running dungeons.

Necro marks are great control in dugeons and wells can be useful to buff entire parties. Necro is designed as the tankiest caster in the game so if dying is a problem for you, you’ll appreciate that aspect of the class.

The minions that can be summoned are decent at the moment but I believe will get buffed in the future (possibly in the upcoming patch). That said, we do have some bugs but I believe many problems with the profession will be addressed in the upcoming patch so it certainly is a good time to start a necro.

Engineers have some very good builds for AoE damage such as using a grenade kit and then Elixer U > 1 1 1 1 1 1 11 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 11111111

Necros bring alot of non-cc control skills to instances, Fearing twice, chill and blinds assist the team alot in pulling out more damage.

I was like you OP. I started an engineer but was finding it pretty boring. I switched to my Necro and think he is a blast. Just got to level 40 last night and did AC storymode with this character for the first time. Very survivable. I don’t use any minions and was dropping a lot of wells all the time, as well as marks. In tight situations pop ino DS and rinse and repeat.

Engineer is my main. Necro is my alt. I find these two to be the funnest of the 8 professions. In a dungeon both provide a good amount of debuffing (weakness, blinds, chills, etc.) which fits my playstyle. Necros are super team condition cleansers. Engineers are pretty good at all around support with a variety of heals and buffs. Necros have somewhat better control, for those bosses which are not immune. Engineers have at least double the combo potential.

I’m going to give the slight edge to engineers, because engineer cooldowns are more favorable. I typically have 2 kits slotted at any given time (aside from the med-kit, which I use 95% of the time). Elixir gun and grenades or bombs in dungeons, grenades and bombs in world PvE and WvW. Sometimes I’ll throw on the flamethrower for a bit of variety, though it tends to have some of the hit registration issues that we also experience with certain necro skills.

You know I could go on for a while. Given that you’ve already played 6 of the 8 professions, why not just go the rest of the way and play them both?

Choose Engy.

You will NOT be dissapointed.

Plus they’re getting alot of changes with the patch, most likely buffs. Necro we still have no idea yet.

There’s no harm in rolling both and just playing til you see which one fits more, and then see the changes with the patch and go from there.

To the poster above me, I’d say engy’s are much better team condition scrubbers. Elixir Gun and Thrown Elixir trait, enough said. Necro has a broken Plague Signet that doesn’t scrub and a 5 second condition convert on a 60 second cooldown. Putrid Mark is NOT a reliable ally condition scrubber whatsoever.

Engy can do alot of neat things.

Knote.2904:

To the poster above me, I’d say engy’s are much better team condition scrubbers. Elixir Gun and Thrown Elixir trait, enough said. Necro has a broken Plague Signet that doesn’t scrub and a 5 second condition convert on a 60 second cooldown. Putrid Mark is NOT a reliable ally condition scrubber whatsoever.

Engy can do alot of neat things.

I stand corrected. Elixir gun is awesome at removing conditions on teamates.

I started as a Necro but couldnt take it. The necro isnt what I expected nor wanted. So I jumped ship and changed to my second choice Engi. The engi is now my main and has been max level for a while. I like the turrets alot more than minions.

I find keeping alive turrets is alot easer than minions (yes in dungeons) and turrets feel like they actually matter where my minions tend to die each and every fight (out of dungeons) they are hardly worth summoning.

I also find the engi alot more… obvious? (cant think of how to express this) I can just look at his skills, traits and powers and easly tell how to use them and what to use them with for the best results. With the necro im all confused and most of the time it feels like the skills I use just dont have any impact on the battle at all.

I just click with the engi, tho I really really want to be a necro.

If you’re looking for a turret/minion type deal, you’re going to have a bad time. The way arena net designed it, minions/turrets are designed for tank specs simply because they do not scale with stats. They do flat damage, calculate in vulnerability on enemy, and traits put into them. None of them do extraordinary damage, and none of them can be made to do extraordinary damage.

Obviously my main is a level 80 engineer. I’ve tried every kind of build imaginable. Personally I have a hard time switching between kits rapidly to utilize engineers to their fullest. You can have the same amount of skills as a elementalist if you choose to do so. I ended up with a rifle/grenade fury crit build which works decently. You could probably go full berserker and have a better time than I did.

My time with necro has been wonderful. I’m really concerned that people are saying power specs dont work with necros… so far up to 40 it’s been easier than leveling my engineer. I did AC story today under leveled and felt like I was contributing greatly. I’ve no idea where the idea that power builds on necros are underpowered.

My only 2 characters I’m leveling are a Necro and an Engi.

PVE Fighting with a Necro feels a bit like a plate spinning act.

“Let me slow them down with scepter 2, then apply weakness with my dagger 5 then Cut myself with bleeding, get my 5 stacks of might, and then transfer over the bleeding with my Dagger 4… Okay. NOW I can start fighting this guy.” which means doing everything else not on cooldown.

Fighting with an Engie feels very strait-forward.

“I’m shooting at you, monster. I’ll net you with my 2 and when you get close, I’m blasting you back with my 4, coming back for more? I’ll three you at point blank range and then re-net you, while walking backwards.” Rinse/repeat. Jump around with Five for funsies.

Necro = Low base skill requirement, but highest learning curve, above generic fun making stuff explode with the powahz of darkness, killing entire villages by passive aggrssiveness and will maybe get a dragon in a pur… i mean handbag or Fwoosh. Also condition control focused class with most possible chills and bugs. Pretty nice in combat diversity (from being a direct damage to a interrupt/cc machine for PvE or nice zone control in PvP), but with heavy build limitations because of buggy nature and trait setup.
Engie: Medium base skill requirement, low learning curve (keybinds being pretty important for toolbelt skill usage), generic, but pretty ful with… ahhh just watch meet the pyro and youll know how you feel as a engie. Highly limited combat diversity (once you go down one route in combat you are stuck with it unless you go for explosions), but really nice cross-build synergy (Flamethrower/Elix, Granade/Turrets, Gadget/Bomb and Turret/Wrench).