What was your first impression of engineer? And what do you think about engineer now?

Looking back to launch, I was looking for a profession that was fun but also had lots of skills that would great for team support as I mainly play PvE; so I picked engineer due to the wealth of inventions this class could bring in battle. I was amazed by the diversity of skills from kits, elixirs, gadgets, and turrets; I really think that with this class, you can really create great support builds. However with raids, meta builds and the clearly new DPS role, Holosmith; it became increasingly clear that the engineer is firmly locked as a DPS class and we wouldn't be seeing any competitive support specs.

What was your initial impression of engineer? And what do you think about engineer now?

My first impression of an engineer was it would be similar to how scourge is marketed, whereby we'd be able to control the battleground and support the team via turrets. Sadly it didn't pan out that way and have not enjoyed the power DPS specs since grenadier and elixir infused bombs got nerfed way back, but Holosmith was really fun in the demo and I'm looking forward to playing my new main!

The engineer is one of the few classes I don't enjoy at all. I can't exactly explain why...It just feels boring to me. Maybe I just don't get the class and don't understand all the skills and how I should effectively use those. But I really enjoyed the demo of the holosmith so now I try to level my engineer. Before seeing the holosmith in action I ingored my engineer most of the time.

I like engineer. I feel drawn to it. For some reason i am drawn to classes that are complex and receive nerfs for years.

As far as combat goes....i like engineer for being tanky and strong damage and solo support. I tried guardian but i hated being a support bot. I might try warrior with tanky gear. I love scrapper and my rifle duelist engineer. I have multiple engineers. I love viper gear and i love commander wanderer and sentinel gear sets. I generally like to be a balance of defense and offense.

I enjoy engineers skills. They are all useful except turrets. Elixirs tools kits and gyros are all useful in certain builds

I love wvw on my engineer and spvp and solo pve. I do not like raiding or fractals. Some people think i am a noob and maybe i am. In pSpvp and wvw my engineer is a pain to 1v1 and 1v2 but i think engineers have good burst damage cc and boons. I have come to realize that engineer is a very very selfish profession and it brings very little to group play. Everything seems to be about self surviving anf solo combat and top dps.

That's why i love engineer. I get to spend time after work doing some minor solo selfish gameplay.

I only even bought the game because of turrets (and the insistence of a group of friends that wanted to play it once it came out). I love to play TF2's Engineer, putting a bit of time investment into an area slightly behind the action in order to assert dominance over the battle when it reaches me. When I found out that turrets werd basically just glorified Blast Finishers and nothing else, I stopped playing except when friends asked me to join, and when they stopped playing, so did I.

A year or two and a new bunch of interested friends later, and I've realized I quite like all the tricks Engineers have up their sleeves, able to handle a great many situations. I still wish turrets could be made into worthwhile area denial, especially with some sort of buildup that makes them truly exceptional if you have time to prepare, but the bag of tricks available at present certainly aren't too shabby.

I remember watching this video...

And loving the concept of Pistol + Shield. Unfortunately "Absorb" didn't make it into the game.

I loved the old synergy between FT & EG, and held onto that playstyle well into HoT (Alchemy/Tools/Firearms). There was also the Tankcat build. Good times.

Now it's Hammer Scrapper, and a similar bruiser playstyle. Looking forward to utilizing a Shield once more in PoF. Hammer and Shield being among my favorite weapons stylistically.

Oh and I'm apparently the only one who loved the hobo sacks. Added another element to set the Engineer apart from other profs. Especially that each kit had a unique appearance. Most notably FT & EG.

Thanks for the video- brings back memories.Played engi since the beginning and love the quirkiness of the class. Love the explosions and mayhem.Pretty disappointed in the theme of Holosmith. Doesn't feel like my vision of engi. I'll be playing scourge instead.

I was drawn to "the ugly duckling". I usually stay away from the more popular warrior and mage type classes and find the more unique class that may not be as flashy and appealing on the surface. I trust that there's something beneath the surface that will reward my curiosity.

I like the mayhem an Engineer brings to battle. Laser beams called down from the sky, explosions from every other skill, it's just a fun aesthetic. Engineers use their rifle to launch them off the ground how cool is that! And they propel themselves through battle with rocket powered boots!

Scrapper toned that back a little bit, but I still enjoyed it. The Holosmith--while a lot of people can justifiably say it departs from the typical Engi--seems to go back to that crazy, over the top exploding madman aesthetic. This time we just conjure comically large swords, hammers, and rifles to blast enemies with.

This sort of blends into the other thread about Engis being complex, but that's what I like on the gameplay side. While the grenade kit hasn't left my skill bar for any significant amount of time in 5 years, the class never feels boring to me.

When I first started the game I actually made a Guardian for my first character (I played Paladin in WoW before it so figured I'd go with something similar) but after I hit level 80 with it I got really bored with the class so I made an engineer. Engi was really unique compared to the games I previously played (best thing I could compare it to was if you made a class out of the Engineering craft in WoW) and I really loved how unique it was compared to the other classes.

Turrets were my favorite playstyle for a while because they were really cool and you could easily play the enemies how you wanted because the turrets were doing good damage and you could focus on keeping them in the "turret zone" where they could all hit. I think my first main build was Net Turret/Rifle and Rocket with Crate elite and rifle, I just used full Soldier's armor at the time (since turrets didn't scale off of player stats I just went for power armor with defense, toughness helped a lot more back then too than it does today).

Engineer now still has a similar flair to me, turrets are useless now which sucks considering they were really only OP for a short time and only in low level play in PvP so they nerfed them all around. I play Scrapper most of the time for my power builds and use core engi for condition builds. I experiment with many builds and stuff and my main build (which is power) I usually try to go for all around defense because I like in fights that I have a counter to most things.

Holosmith is definitely more unique than Scrapper I'd say so I'm really looking forward to a big change in style.

I always liked the versatile classes in games and Engineer was for a long time that class. As the game has progressed we've lost that. Back in the dungeon days your roles were basically everyone DPS the best you can while making sure your team has reflects, CC, and boons. So you have your might stacking which Ele excelled in but we were right behind. You had reflects from Mesmers and guard but in a pinch we could toss Elixir U or fortified turrets with reflect shields. CC had multiple elements but we could fill in for the defiant stripping and excelled in soft CCs like for instance Immob locking Archdiviner or chilling Ettin. Basically our variety of tools used to have so much more power and influence in play. But, now we have trinity and more specialized roles and abilities. We can't fill in for a PS war, druid or chrono, and we're no longer something I'd call a "jack of all trades" but instead just a DPS with some flair.

I picked up Engi when HGH was extremely strong and used in wvw roaming consistently. Was super fun and glassy.

Now I play cele engi and feel like an ass :bleep_bloop:

My first impression of Engi was "Ew backpacks."My second impression was "I really like these tool belt skills!"

Today I'm a bit mixed on my feelings toward Engi. It never became one of my main classes and I wasn't overly fond of scrapper. Hammer and Gyros just didn't do it for me. I'm very excited for Holosmith. I love the concept so even if it underperforms (not saying it will! I'm hopeful it'll be good) I'll probably still play Engi more than I have in the last few years.

My initial experience was that I actually didn't enjoy the engineer at first, I couldn't work out a build I enjoyed. It wasn't until Scrapper came out and I level boosted, that I found ways to enjoy the class and went back and tried to vary things up.I am looking forward to holosmith, but I do dislike the lack of consistency with being able to switch between ranged and melee, especially when being power based.

Engineer was my first class. I thought it was very exciting, but very complex. It was too much for me to grasp when I began because I'm an extremely slow learner. What takes one person 3 days to a week to learn, takes me 3 weeks to a month to learn. I just really need to absorb things. And Engineer was a lot to take in as a beginner to GW2.

I dropped it for around 2(?) years I think before coming back to it and was happy I gave it a second chance. I find it a lot less complicated than I did when I first started and even less so than many people consider it to be as a whole. For some reason, coming back to it later on made it feel very natural to play to me.

I have only 4 characters and they are the only 4 professions that I enjoy playing. I've tried every class to a reasonable extent but none are as exciting to me as the 4 that I have (Necromancer/Ranger/Warrior/Engineer).

I liked them when I first started playing one, but fell in love when I worked out my celestial 4 kit build.

I'm a bit of an altaholic, and can't play the same way over and over. but with EG/TK/FT and healing turret with pistol/shield I can change my play style without needing to change to another character (I play open PvE/WvW so I don't need to be pushing the limits to contribute).

not sure I will even try the holosmith, I like my current build to much.

At first impression of the engi was that I loved it my personal favorite was the rifle skill 5 (Jump shot) and I love bouncing from place to place. I lost interest a little while afterwards because I did not have the dexterity to play engi properly, as well as them not really having in weapons, kits aside. For that reason I spent most of my time on my thief, and when I saw the scrapper I was further pushed away because it was not pumping the dmg that I was so accustomed to on the thief. (yes I know, thief has spoiled me :p ) I am excited for the New holosmith though, and like the concept of it bending light to use it as a weapon. It has an Iron-man feel to it, but I hope that the next elite spec for engi less Magi-teach and more of a classical engineer feel to it, if that makes sense. I feel like a lot of gw2 lately has been focused on Magi-tech too much.

The Engineer is without a doubt the one profession I can never get bored of because of its wide variety of skills. Even from the very early levels there was great variety with the pistol I had a variety of conditions I could apply, a blind on demand, immobilise with glue shot and the awesome blowtorch skill &animation. With the engineer I could go into areas where the mobs were from 5 to 10 levels higher than me but with the variety of skills I could keep them all at bay while dealing damage and feeling like an absolute boss B). I can still remember some great moments I had while levelling.

I think what I really really love about the engineer game-play wise is how you have to use your wide variety of skills to achieve your goals and how easy it is to chain several skills together (because you have so many of them on demand) for a specific purpose, furthermore thematically they remind me of Mandalorians and the whole profession reminds me of bounty hunters; the not having some other worldly powers or abilities just some tools and gadgets that anyone could pick up but your character has perfected their use to be on par with and in cases stronger than those inherently more powerful by luck of the draw.

I saw it as the spiritual successor to the ranger from GW1 -- a class that could theoretically do it all, and in unique ways.

For the most part, this has held true. I just don't like being forced to play the piano to do the same DPS as other classes. I'm also sad that much of our utility has fallen by the wayside for lack of usefulness.

I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I like the fact it has dual pistols and the utility skills like rocket boots are fun to move around in. I also like the turret side of it. On the other hand, I hate kit swapping. I want to use my dual pistols for the full effect, and not just for one move. It is the main reason the level has remained at 30 once I have learned that's all end game is for it. I hate the grenades as well.

I am seriously hoping P/P is good damage with holosmith, so I can actually use the weapons instead of dumb kit swapping.

Felt like a jack of all trades when I first started playing engi. I saw that dungeon groups wanted reflects and stealth but I didn't like Guardian, Mesmer, or Thief, so I rolled engi and did their jobs when I joined pugs. After power engi started gaining traction I made it my main. No cool downs and always having something to do in combat always keeps me interested.

When Scrapper rolled out I liked the idea of hammer for utility but it just felt slower than Pistol/Pistol or Rifle, and although gyros had their uses the cooldowns were a turn off and they didn't function the way I thought they would.

I don't know how I feel about Holosmith yet, it doesn't fit the "theme" of Engi I've been so accustomed to. Someone tried to tell me they're going more toward asuran tech since the class has been charr/human tech themed for a long while and I guess I agree with that. The skills and animations sure are flashy and pretty and the photoforge feels like I'm playing kit engi but I'm not in love with sword skills.

@AnthonyPalomo.8753 said:Felt like a jack of all trades when I first started playing engi. I saw that dungeon groups wanted reflects and stealth but I didn't like Guardian, Mesmer, or Thief, so I rolled engi and did their jobs when I joined pugs. After power engi started gaining traction I made it my main. No cool downs and always having something to do in combat always keeps me interested.

When Scrapper rolled out I liked the idea of hammer for utility but it just felt slower than Pistol/Pistol or Rifle, and although gyros had their uses the cooldowns were a turn off and they didn't function the way I thought they would.

I don't know how I feel about Holosmith yet, it doesn't fit the "theme" of Engi I've been so accustomed to. Someone tried to tell me they're going more toward asuran tech since the class has been charr/human tech themed for a long while and I guess I agree with that. The skills and animations sure are flashy and pretty and the photoforge feels like I'm playing kit engi but I'm not in love with sword skills.

IMO sword skills are good mechanically but they could have added new animations to make them feel cooler. Auto attack is good, especially with the 3rd chain reducing the CD of the other skills. Native quickness on engi outside of traits and elixir is awesome, especially when you can get 6 seconds base running the ECSU. Sword 2 skill does great damage if you hit with all of the projectiles.

I thought it was fun, different. I had a good time but eventually I just got tired. Tired feeling like I had to put in a lot more effort to achieve almost the same results as other people. Usually higher effort is more rewarding but it wasn't. Scrapper really had me excited but the hammer in PvE just crushed my motivation to continue because of how disappointed I was with Scrapper overall.

Engineer in real life, therefore must play engineer in-game. The creed demands it :)Engineer was awesome at release, engineer is still awesome today. More so with the mortar kit changes and condition buffs.In the words of heavy weapons guy, "Engineer is credit to team!"

Some talk meta, must play XYZ to be socially accepted, gotta follow the heard, etc. etc. "Nope". I have so much fun and success with my engineer it's almost criminal. Even the new Holosmith with its disco mode is going to be fun to play around with. The engineer is the only profession I play in GW2 these days.

Plus.. Plus we got light sticks now. LIGHT STICKS! Guys, we won fashion wars 2017. #Engineer4TheWin.

I always play engineer type classes in these games so I wanted to play one as soon as I heard the class announcement. Unfortunately the turret in the video looks bad ass. Reality says otherwise.

I wasn't a fan at first, especially back when they first announced the profession. Part of that was the lack of weapon options, part of it was that turrets didn't particularly appeal to me for a game that advertised itself as placing a much greater emphasis on mobility than GW1, and, I'll admit, part of it was frustration that they had added it in lieu of a true spiritual successor to the Dervish.

After using it, though, I really like it, and it has replaced Ranger as my main. I like it with Scrapper as well, given how insanely hard to kill you can be for the amount of damage you put out. I haven't tried Holosmith much yet, so we'll see how that goes.