Guild Wars 2

You’ll unlock it to wardrobe.

Try dragging the top-right corner to resize it and reduce its width a bit so it can fit between the side and your weapon skills.

I main an engineer, though I’ve played every class, just keep coming back to my beloved bomb dropper.

1. I just adore the versatility of engies, the way I get to do fire/stealth/water fields + blasts whenever required, get perma-swiftness if I need mobility, have really high damage with bombs+nades as well as ridiculously nice vulnerability stacking, can play around with kits and tools a lot if I want to change up my playstyle for a while. Don’t think there’s anything I really hate about them; possibly the fact it takes quite some practice to get to a point where you can get good damage rotations, but then I enjoy the challenge so it’s not even really a con.

2.
PvE: I run mostly with my guild, who enjoys my vuln + reflect a lot, but I don’t recall getting any negative receptions when pugging. Engineers are fairly rare to find so I think they’re not as negatively seen as rangers, who get a bad rep from the proliferation of bearbows, so most of the time people will just shrug and go along with you.
PvP: haven’t gotten any bad reactions except from one dude once who went “lol decap/bunker engies suck” but also, he was a jerk so I’m not sure it counts. Engineers are great for PvP, thanks again to that versatility, and you shouldn’t get any trouble there. I love it when I run into a good engie in PvP, they’re so nice to play with/frustrating to fight against.
WvW: I’m rarely in WvW so I’m no expert, but from what I’ve seen and what friends have told me engies are also very viable in Wvw and so don’t get a bad reception there either. They can be built nicely as bunkers while having the range to wham into an enemy group, can sustain themselves against thief roamers if you do it right, etc etc.

3. Engies are awesome party members and I like it so much. I definitely feel useful – I can tack on a projectile block if no guardian’s in the party, I can stack might if we’re missing an ele or the ele is busy with conjured weapons, I can stealth us if we don’t have a thief, I have a bunch of area condi cleanses, I get the bosses to near-constant 25 vuln to make them go down faster…. what’s not to like, man.

As said, most, if not all, professions are good to play solo. I have leveled one of each class to level 80 and personally I’d say not to use mesmer or elementalist, as the former can have fairly low damage and the latter is very squish, until at least your second character; they have their uses and are good at soloing, it just might take some time to get them to a point where they’re fun to play.

Ranger is – easy, bit boring in my experience, since you can basically have your pet take all the aggro and then pick mobs off from range. Necro is very nice for solo play, has a solid health pool and some good damage whether you go condition damage or power.

You’ve said you’re bored of warriors so possibly guardian is out, although they’re a bit trickier to play than warr IMO. Pretty mobile and full of utility skills, so they’re not bad, and while they have heavy armor they’re squishier than warriors in my experience.

I main an engineer and they’re really good solo, but there’s a bit of a learning curve to them as they have a lot of stuff going on and some people have trouble juggling it properly. If you like a challenge they’re nice however, and are very versatile while having the potential to be top-tier damage-dealers, which makes them good for solo and party play. (I’m biased, obviously, but also: engineers are great.)

Re: servers, these days your server’s main use will be in determining who you play with in World vs World, while open world PvE will have you mixed up with people from every server in your region probably, so it’s not super important if you don’t care about WvW.

If you want DPS, full berserker armor/trinkets/weapons, axe/sword+greatsword and 5/6/0/0/3 traits is the setup I believe.

Did you do world vs world maps? You need Red, Green & Blue Borderlands plus Eternal Battlegrounds.

It would probably help for you to say whether you are on kitten or EU server. Good luck on finding someone

My engineer was my first character and I never had problems with it either, although for some reason I hated kits for a long time and used mainly turrets to level. (I now know better, although turrets in PvP = love :P) But eh, everyone’s got different tastes and it definitely might look like a weird class coming after warrior or ranger which I think a lot of people use as first characters while they learn the ropes.

But props to you for wanting to stick with the best class and good luck! It is rather long but it’s fun and filled with the sounds of your enemies being blown up, which is the best kind of road in my opinion.

I think the skill cap has a lot to do with it, since it means that a lot of people you see playing engineers may not be very good, or that people who have tried playng them but not ‘clicked’ with the class can dismiss them as useless when they just haven’t gotten around to using them properly.

I also recall how a few months back Anet showed some stats that showed engineer was the least played profession along with mesmer (10% of characters only, something like that?) which might compound the issue, as rare engineers + skill threshold means less chances of having known someone who ckittene them well and so them getting a bad rep.

My first thought on seeing “light armor dungeon runner” is berserker (power/precision/ferocity) elementalist, since the fiery greatsword elite skill is extremely useful for a party and always in demand, on top of having really high damage output in general and the ability to stack might and fury easily. It has the drawback of being the squishiest class though so possibly that’s a con for you given you said you like playing tanks.

Mesmer is also decent in dungeons thanks to having access to skills that give projectile reflects/blocks, plus portals for skipping and the time warp elite is a nice boost for the party during bosses. They also are a bit more durable than elementalists and have blocks and invulnerability skills + some teleportation skills so they might be a bit better suited for you re: survivability? Keeping in mind that berserker is still the best for dungeon efficiency so you’ll still be fairly squishy.

Necro I’d advise against for dungeons specifically, as they’re pretty ‘selfish’ in terms of skills/boons and anything they can do for the party ckittenually be done as well or better by other professions who’ll bring more to the table. Good for open world PvE and WvW, but mostly a meh in dungeons.

I haven’t played my thief in ages, and never quite as much as my engie so I’m willing to believe that, Guanglai, although it seems to me that to get good engie DPS some skill is definitely needed vs thief where it’s fairly easy to dish it out even if you’re not that good or perfectly traited?

@Hattoni: yeah engineer requires a bit more investment in practice/skill than most other classes I find, but the DPS is very solid so I don’t think that’s a worry. (Plus with the vulnerability you’ll be stacking on enemies will also increase overall party DPS by quite a bit so it’s a win-win.)

I main an engineer in a guild that runs dungeons on a daily basis and honestly it’s a really good class to have in a party. As said above one nice thing is that you have a bunch of different stuff to offer, be it fire/smoke/water fields to blast, a metric ton of blast finishers, a LOT of vulnerability which will make bosses go down easier and faster, good mobility, even a reflect/projectile block which is always good to have.

Personally I like engineer over thief because thief feels much more ‘specialized’, ie are basically just stealth+high single-target DPS focus with little variation, whereas engies are extremely versatile, and while they don’t have quite the raw damage of thieves their use to the party overall can be extremely high.

I also play engie in PvP and can confirm it works really well, in a variety of roles, thanks to that versatility. For example, I tend to go with a bunkery build to hold close or support mid, am pretty durable with water fields + blasts + shield while being able to kill or outlast the other person in a 1v1 most of the time, and if not I often manage to stall enough for my team to come and finish it before we lose the point. But it’s also very valid to play a decap engineer, which are really frustrating to be against if they’re played well and can often be a huge hassle and stall points gain. I’ve also seen a bunch of more offensive, roamer-type engineers although they’re much rarer, but they can work pretty well too.

Compared to thief again I think it’s the ability to fill in a lot of different roles that differs. A good thief roamer is awful to fight against, but hell, I’ve fire-bombed a good dozen of them while doing my bunker thing simply because I know how to dodge and thieves can be pretty one-note.

Berserker gear is equipment with the Power/Precision/Ferocity stat combo, and will usually have it as a prefix in the weapon/armor’s name. It’s the best for DPS and a lot of experienced dungeon-running groups will ask you to have it as it’s by far the most efficient for speedrunning, at the cost of being very squishy compared to other stat combos.

Given you’ve got a nice stash of gold (80 is really pretty good for where you are in the game I think) my own suggestion would be to spend it to buy exotic (orange) equipment from the Trading Post instead of using the temple/karma merchants, since the latter don’t necessarily have great stat combos. They’re good for training wheels but not much more than that imo.

(On the topic of gold, don’t try to judge your money from the highest-priced items on the TP such as Twilight – that’s a legendary weapon, as indicated by the purple name, and they are about the highest priced items in the entire game.)

Re: dungeons, for learning you could definitely try the story modes, if only to get used to running with a party, but one thing to keep in mind is that there is quite a difficulty spike between story and explorable modes. The best way to learn IMO would be to join a guild, as then you can get a party with people you know who can talk you through it properly, but otherwise it’s also valid to create your own party via LFG – writing something like “LFG, first-timer but willing to learn” in the description. It may take a little while to fill but you could be agreeably surprised, I know a bunch of experienced dungeon runners who like to occasionally pop into beginner groups to help out when they see them advertised, myself included. Hell if you’re EU feel free to friend & ping me ingame, I wouldn’t mind walking you through the commonly run paths.

As for mesmers, they are tricky to play I find, and like said above they take a while to get used too + are kitten squish at low levels. Their damage is not ideal but they can be pretty handy in groups as they have a lot of nifty utility skills, like Feedback which reflects projectiles or Portal which, well, creates portals (handy for skipping in dungeons, for example, or helping friends up jumping puzzles…). So if you do play one and like it, you’ll likely have no trouble finding parties once leveled up.

I have an engie and a thief at 80 and I personally find engineer a lot more fun and flexible. The variety of kits and other utilities means you can do a lot of different things, and I think it fits your criteria of mobile/versatile.

Now I might be biased, since my engie is my main character for pvp, but it really is capable of doing a lot of things in a way that thieves aren’t exactly – wanna go bunker? Pretty easy as an engie. Decap? Hell yeah. Roaming/damage? Just gotta fiddle a bit with utilities and traits and basically you can pretty much do everything. I’m especially fond of how they have a loooot of different combo fields available so you can access stealth/might/heal/cleanse easily, as well as potentially share them with your team. It can take a while to get used to juggling kits, but it’s a really worthwhile effort IMO.

The PvP reward track rewards are gained only through PvP: you’ll progress along it as you play matches (with more progress from a win than a loss) and get rewards when you reach certain points.

Dungeons story modes are only to unlock their associated reward tracks so that you can do them any time you like instead of having to wait for them to become the weekly dungeon reward track (which is accessible to everyone even if they haven’t done the dungeon).

Nothing yet as far as I know.

Hey there,

I’m a fairly casual gamer, started playing with a couple of friends a few months ago, now looking to find a nice social guild to hang out and chat with while doing my monster killing and run dungeons explorables and fractals so I don’t have to worry about PUGs.

Something not too big would be nice, as I like getting to know people and the biggest things sometimes make that hard, but that’s not a requisite. Mostly I’d just like a friendly and open atmosphere and cool people to chat/do things with. One of my friends might be interested as well, is looking for similar things so if you’d be cool with taking them along as well that’s a big plus.

Feel free to whisper me in-game or leave something on here, and thanks c: