lol
I wouldn’t mind endless regeneration like Wolverine, then my fingers would never get tired of throwing grenades. But seriously, I didn’t find grenades unbearable, just felt trapped into playing it, as it felt way more effective than any other build available to the engineer.
Hi, I used to love the engineer while leveling it, made it to level 38 before turning away from it (mind you this was my first time in the world, leveling can take a while)
I was in awe with the diversity, I loved bombs, grenades, elixir gun, rocket boots, personal battering ram, slick shooes ->rocket boots.
I feel like I learned guild wars as an Engineer, was fun, but then a big problem hit me when I got into pvp.
I played about 100 games on my engineer, trying different builds, I loved the static discharge build and its variants the most, but found I couldn’t survive two seconds with a thief, or if I built to do so, could no longer enjoy static discharge for what it was, a burst spec. After trying tons of builds, it finally dawned on me that the best kit for almost anything (except maybe pve) is the grenade kit, its damage/control/conditions made it a most potent engineering tool. Than I found that if I mixed it with a bomb kit, I’d have lots of protection while in melee, while being able to switch to grenades and condition spam some more. With Supply depot being the only real viable elite, and healing turret being the best heal with these two monster combo kits, I’d either mix in elixir gun or toolkit or rocket boots, depending on if I was playing a support, bunker or roamer (far node/assist on assaults) respectively.
Basically, I reached a point where it felt like any other build simply wasn’t viable in Spvp. Have any other engineers reached this hurdle? If so, how did you get over it? I have been playing a ranger lately, and near as I can tell, there is more actual diversity in the class for pvp. Sure power rangers aren’t as viable as a spirit build or bm bunker or even a shout bunker, but really the difference in power isn’t so great that you can’t enjoy the varying specs. I get to go into a match and decide if I want to dmg/support/bunker just like the engineer, and while it is better to bunker as a ranger, its viable to play support and dmg, and when I do play those roles, my weapons, traits and utility skills can vary greatly.
What it all comes down to, is that I find Engineer to be a profession which advertises lots of diversity when leveling and wvw (don’t know much about high lvl pve yet), but in spvp, if you want to kitten , go grenades, if you want to be a B class, enjoy the diversity.
Sorry for the long read, I just want to see light with the Engineer, I feel like I’m missing something about how they can play. Its too bad my all gadget/toolkit static discharge build was such a flop. (only cause you are defenseless to any focus fire, I hate when a good thief notices my build and just harasses me all game, funny enough I had the most problems with p/p thiefs in skyhammer)
Thief I found to be very straight forward for pvp with lots of room to grow. This was my first character but found it got boring in pve.
Warrior is straight forward, but less so than thief in pvp. (You can’t just 100blades a player without setting it up) I’d say they are harder to pick up, but once you get a good understanding it’s pretty simple.
Mesmer has some great burst, but it can be hard to pull off, they are a tricky class, but again, once you get comfortable with the flow of the class it gets easier.
Elementalist is a very rigid class unfortunately (my opinion), so it takes a good while to get the rotations down, and without them, you will hit like a wet noodle. You need to know how to combo into combo. A very fun class to play when mastered, but getting there may prove to be a struggle.
Ranger is a lot like warrior in terms of skill (besides spirit ranger). It seems straight forward in pve, but once players don’t start battling your pet, you need to learn to adapt. (If you want to faceroll as a spirit ranger or have a similar challenge as your war, here it is)
Necromancer is a pretty versatile class in what it does. While it doesn’t have good direct damage, it has builds that vary in difficulty and playstyle. I’d say if you love minions and fear, this along with thief are my top two easy to get into hard to master classes for pvp. (As skill matters a lot, yet you can spec for overpoweredness if you want, like a spirit ranger)
Guardian is a fun class, great for starting pvp as you can feel near indestructible, but you’ll probably need to get more into the class to start applying any kind of reliable pressure (aka you won’t kill, but won’t get killed, as a newer player) Probably my third recommendation if you a comfortable playing a bunker while you learn the ropes)
Engineer is the class I finally choose when I had this same dilemma (although I wanted 1 class for both pvp and pve) It is very versatile (most in the game), but understanding that versatility can get complicated, you’ll always be learning new things. It has some builds to ease you into pvp, but they are hidden behind a mist. (pm me if you want one of two very fun bunker builds I made) I’d say if you want something straight forward, it won’t be here, but it is very fun and unique. And as I said, can be built to play very easily (I was getting owned, until I spent a couple hours designing an unkillable build, which allowed me to observe my opponents longer, which gave me a chance to learn the ropes of pvp, of course I killed no one until I changed the build)
All in all, I’d say that you want a class that can be built tanky to learn pvp (thief can stealth, which is similar, but not as useful to the team) So either Thief, Guardian, Necro, or if you are willing to have fun theory crafting a lot, Engi can also be good.
Every other class (minus spirit ranger) will get you owned before you learn to play them, although by now you could probably work on your playstyle with your warrior and master it in the same time it would take you to learn a new class.
Good luck, and I hope this helped, all this came from me being an altoholic and trying to settle on a main. Now I play a huge burst Engi, who lets that one guy chase me off the node, only to blow them up, and now its 1v1 on the node XD. Even had my first “Loboling is on a Rampage”.
To give it some realism, when you set up a treb, an npc should spawn, maybe 10k hp, that once you set up the autofire, takes over for you, and fires where you locked the auto-fire. You can take back over at any time, to adjust the firing path.
If he gets killed it should take a couple minutes (maybe 2) for another soldier to make his way onto the battlefield to replace him. Essentially making autofire something that can be turned off easier than killing the treb. This would give thieves something to do in WvW zergs, disable trebs so that players have to use them. Anyway, I think auto fire should have its limitations.
I have played engineer since launch and have studied the toolkit (TK) extensively with the goal of creating a true melee build. While I think that it can be done, it is certainly not an optimal engineer build. In my mind, a true melee build is one that uses TK much of the time, including for autoattack (but still, of course, switches to other weapons or kits as necessary).
I won’t link a specific build here unless there is interest, but here are some points I have discovered that support a melee build:
-don’t be too glassy: TK autoattack is slow, and the kit has no mobility, so you need to survive more than a few hits in melee range.
-consider your mainhand weapon: yes, rifle works well with TK (both are power-based weapons). But if you are squishy or pick up rifle traits, it will be far safer and more effective to just autoattack with the rifle most of the time instead of the toolkit. Then you won’t be melee anymore. Furthermore, both rifle and TK are single-target direct damage weapons, but rifle is honestly just hits harder overall…you may experiment with P/P or P/S as main weapons, since they don’t compete with the strengths of the TK (single-target direct damage).
-pick melee-friendly utility skills: This will encourage you to be in melee range where you can use TK frequently. Examples include rocket boots (gap closer and short-range rocket kick) and throw mine (toolbelt can be used to good effect in melee range).
-consider your traits: power wrench is pretty much a mandatory trait for a melee TK build. I also strongly encourage backpack regenerator, if your toughness is high enough that you live long enough to benefit from it. This will reward you for staying in TK rather than switching to your main weapon all the time.
finally, consider your gear: TK is a power-based weapon for the most part. If you don’t have power on your gear, TK will only be something you switch to transiently for 2-5 skills, and you won’t really be a melee engineer. I like to stack power without crit%/crit dmg., and otherwise focus on vit/toughness (e.g. P/V/T gear). This makes you survivable enough to use TK in melee range. Furthermore, with too much crit/crit dmg., it seems more effective to just autoattack for 1k+ at range from the rifle.
In conclusion, it may not be optimal to play melee engineer, but it is feasible in all but hyper-competitive play, and it can be very rewarding. Good luck!
Thanks for this post; it was really helpful. I’ll look into what “power wrench” is I’m still only lvl 18. But this was most of what I was looking for. I’m glad to hear I can at least run around bashing mobs or players in the face if its what I feel like doing at the time. Now all we need is some kind of holographic stampede, does no damage but inflicts fear XD.
Anyway, I think with this I can invest the needed time to hit 80 without worry that the profession itself will get stale too quick. Although if Arena Net ever reads this, I approve of another melee based kit or a new melee based weapon. And thanks for all the feedback so far, not sure when I’ll visit this thread again, but I hope this thread serves useful to any other melee enthusiasts wanting to focus their attention on the creative engineer class.
I have been using bomb kit and rifle, but have only tried the toolkit in uplevel situation. (I didn’t spend much time as I wanted to learn the class from the ground up). I love the bombs, helped me open a chest in a jumping puzzle that was surrounded by sludge creatures, they would respawn nearly instantly, so a big bomb was the only way I could give myself the space to open the chest.
I can’t wait to try a toolkit build, good news to hear that 3 is another attack. Might be enough to make me feel like I’m hitting my enemies rather than blowing them up. I almost rolled a guardian just for their hammer knockback attack, but I can settle for a rifle to the face. I think I’ll keep focusing on my Engineer, and see how far I can push a melee build. I still hope one day we can get another weapon, and that it’s melee, or an all melee kit. For now, I don’t think another class could satisfy me as much as the Engineer.
Greetings fellow mad scientists, I recently bought guild wars 2 and have been having a blast with my engineer. I fell in love the first time I managed to rocket boots onto something too far for a jump, and I don’t think I could play anything else without the versatility of the Engineer. Although I don’t much like the turrets clunkiness, everything else is fun, and I’m hoping with some traits and some levels I may be able to make turret build functionally fun.
After I had started guild wars 2 as a Thief, I plowed through to level 25, where I was getting bored with the repetitiveness of either blinding my enemies, having boring ranged option, or stealth backstabbing over and over. I did some WvW and it was fun, but then I had met an Engineer who crushed me. (I was able to get my revenge) But the class seemed most interesting. After a while I decided to ditch the Thief and focus on either an Elementalist or Engineer. Again, while leveling them both I found rocket boots and made up my mind XD.
Now to the point of this post:
I really wish there was a viable melee engineer build, I feel like it is the only thing missing. If I could just pick up a giant hammer or even a shovel, and wack someone over the head senseless on my Engineer, I’d have no regrets about this being my main. The toolkit is a very poor replacement with only one melee attack. Even Elementalits can summon a lightning hammer or fiery greatsword for some fun in melee. I was wondering if anyone knows of a build I’m overlooking (even if its weak), or any plans by Arena-net to add a melee weapon to the Engineer? I want to make this my main and only character (I don’t like focusing multiple characters and wouldn’t have time anyway), but sometimes I just want to smack a centaur on the head XD.
Anyway, let me know if any other engineers have ever craved what I crave and if there is any hope.
Thanks a bunch, from an admirer of the profession, Loboling.
TLDR: Can Engineers melee (with more than auto attack) or is there any future plans to incorporate a melee option to engineers. (like a mechanical hammer that swings for you, like Homer Simpson XD)