New Player here, some questions about the classes

[Weekend Warrior.2904]

Greeting fellow adventurers,

i'm complete new to mmos and GW2. I've played a lot of single player RPG's over the last 20 years. My prefered classes in those games where always the more complex and active ones. So i tried out all classes wich seems fun to me. I purchased HoT and PoF and tried the elite speccs in this pvp lobby thing. Engineer (all specs) and elementalist (weaver) where the most fun one and seems also the most complex to me.So i went to the forums and subreddit and read trough a few topics and now i'm a little bit confused. To me it seems engi is more one of a rare played kind of class. is it really that bad? Some ppl in the world chat wrote that it is rare and overall clunky to play and not good to play solo things like story and open world. Also there is no role beside Holosmith in the group part of the game. Normaly i would not give anything about this and play what is fun to me but don't want to get excluded later on. I have only a few hours to play every week so i don't want to level up an army of other chars.I also tried other classes wich are recommended for new players but somehow they don't really catch me. Should i give them a second try? Or is this all the standart doom and gloom wich is going on within game/profession forums?

Thanks for your time and answers.

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

The engineer can be quite complex. Before the Hollowsmith appeared, the class was seen as the "jack of all trades" by a lot of people. Difficult to use and a horrible effort/result ratio. Condition engineer mostly works with complex rotations between kits (skill sets) to reach a good damage-output. And on the other hand you have classes that literally press one button on repeat and do better damage. In addition every update/balance patch basically maintained the engineers damage or even nerfed it slightly, while other classes received boost after boost. If you look into the trait-lines (passive tree), it is always a trade-off. Some traitlines of other classes, e. g. Thief let you pick between damage-boost options mostly, no matter what you pick you end up empowered.

Then Path of Fire came and introduced the Hollowsmith. It is basically not an engineer. It actually plays like a mini-warrior or mini-thief. Good damage output for minimal effort. It just focuses on beating everything up with lots of flashy effects. It is an eye-catcher and manages to drag new players into the class, who would have never touched it otherwise. ANet did a good job with that, no doubt. But some of us who played the real engineer for years actually feel a little mocked. The ones who always wished for a viable dps-engineer are in heaven right now.

A lot of new players want to go to raids. You say you do not want to be excluded from later content, so I would recommend to try the Hollowsmith if you really want to go with the engineer. It plays really smooth and the meta-builds (recommended most efficient gear, skills, passives & rotations) are not difficult to learn and play. Due to its high damage potential it is quite welcome in most parties as a dps-class and even has a role in raids. It is also quite strong in PvP and WvWvW.

What is a Scrapper? Engineer with a hammer, focused on sustain instead of damage. When I am on vacations and I meet one fellow Scrapper in a week, I am really lucky. It is currently one of the rarest classes/specializations you can find in the game. It can be seen as the anti-version of the Hollowsmith. Most engineers rather play vanilla (no elite specialization at all) instead of selecting the Scrapper, because it has no damage increasing features. Why do some people still play it? It has the best hammer skill-set in the game, impressive sustain, gyros (flying robots with different features) and a very unique theme.

If you want complex gameplay and a good effort/result ratio, stick with Elementalist. It is and always has been the better choice.

But I would recommend to level at least one easier class first, so you can learn the most basic game & combat mechanics. If you really want to pick Elementalist or Engineer later, Guardian might be a good class to start with. It has access to plenty of weapons, early access to combos and the virtue-mechanic. The Virtues help you in the beginning of your journey with their passives. Managing the actives helps you understanding and managing more complex classes such as mesmer, engineer or elementalist. It also grants you easy access to blocks and support-abilities. Try out as much as you can, before reaching level 80.

[Vayne.8563]

Engies are less played than other professions for a lot of reasons. For one thing a lot of people play the game for immersion and are looking for a fantasy trope. Engineer, which uses guns and rifles doesn't fit their idea of fantasy.

Others want a simple fire and forget type of character, or one that doesn't require you don't play piano. I fall into the category. Even though I have engies, I prefer easier to play characters, like rangers and mesmers. I know mesmers can be complex, but they're not the way I play them.

Engineers are fine. They're just harder work. Most players are casual and don't want to work hard when playing a game. Engineers have a high skill ceiling and good engies can be found in every area of the game.

[Sephylon.4938]

It depends on what game more you're planning to get into. It's a bit of a one trick pony in pvp and wvw with holo (burst is very nice though), and scrapper and core has been powercrept by pof especs in terms of damage and sustain, but has been given better healing/support options. (Scrapper has been slowly getting better imo, emphasis on slowly.) For pve, engi is fine, it just has a higher skill requirement than most other classes and that tends to dissuade most people from it. Since you've stated you're looking for a complex class, I'd say engi will be a good pick for you.

[ButcherofMalakir.4067]

Both core (without elite spec) and holosmith are very good in pve. Condition core and holo are close in playstyle and are viewed as hardest dps options in the game. Power holo is good power class.

Its true that condition engi/holo has much lower dps/effort ratio but its strenght comes from options. Unlike weaver he can use any skill that is needed imidiatly without losing that much dps. This is huge advantage when for example cc is needed. Also they stack vurnability debuff which increese group dps by 25%. Without engi druid has to sacrifice one valuable ultility slot for that.

Prepare that engi is very hard to master amd require much more actions per minute then some other classes but if you want to go this way there is no better class for you.