Introduction to the Engineer

Engineer is a medium armor profession that focuses on using kits to defeat enemies and support allies in different ways.

You’ll be creating a lot of explosions, chugging elixirs, and using everything at your disposal to your advantage.

Weapons of the engineer include Pistols, a Shield, and a Rifle, where Rifle will be your power weapon, both Pistols will be used by condition builds, and Shield is a defensive option with good Crowd Control.

If you don’t know anything about Guild Wars 2 profession, and you maybe are looking for a short comparison, check out our introductory guides:

Creating your first character

What race do I pick? What profession do I choose? Do I want my biggest regret in life to be that I never joined the circus? After reading this guide you'll know all about the choices you'll face while creating your character.

Game basics – first steps in Tyria

This short guide contains answers to the questions you might have on the first days of your adventure, such as where to look for tips, how to look for a group (LFG), what are the most important parts of the interface, and more!

Profession mechanics

Engineer is not an easy class for beginners, with “Kits” you will have access to a whole additional set of weapon skills for each Kit equipped, and on top of that, all your skills once equipped, will give you another skill to use in your Tool Belt. Your turrets offer you extra “flip abilities” and more interactive gameplay due to ability to pick them up.

Tool Belt Skills

The first main mechanic of an Engineer is the ability to use Tool Belt skills. These skills are bound to F1-F5 by default, and each is dependent on your heal, utilities, and elite skills you have slotted.

For example, let’s say you are using as your healing utility skill. While slotted, you will notice that your F1 changes to .

This Tool Belt skill has a completely separate cooldown from your slotted utility skill, and it usually provides thematically similar effects as the original skill.

Kits

The second main mechanic of an Engineer is the presence of Kit skills. While playing Guild Wars 2 you might’ve picked up an item that replaced your weapon skills with a totally new weapon skill set, those are called “Bundles” and Kits function in a similar way, once you use a Kit skill your weapon skills will be replaced.

This mechanic can potentially extend the number of weapon skills you can use by 25, and to counter this, Engineers lose the ability to Weapon Swap during combat.

Skills

Elixirs

Elixirs are meticulously crafted potions that provide benefits to the drinker immediately when consumed. Alchemy is usually taken if you are using some Elixirs to improve their effects.

The toolbelt skills paired with elixirs allow the Engineer to throw a bottle of the elixir to a specified area, providing powerful effects to any ally standing within the area in which you throw the elixir.

    (skills)
   (tool belt)

Due to more reliable Boon sources in instanced PvE content, Boon-providing Elixirs are not popular picks, but and are great engage skills in Open World, boosting your damage with all the boons considerably.

In competitive game modes, , , and are often taken for their very strong defensive, disengage and Crowd Control capabilities.

Engineering Kits

You can equip and unequip any kit you have access to without an internal cooldown, and you can have as many kits as you would like to swap between.

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    (tool belt)

, , and are very popular choices for healers. alone has a very wide range of heals (including auto-attack) and cleanses.

Both  and have very strong AoE heals in form of and that provide Combo Fields, and from is a Blast Finisher that can be used in those Combo Fields to cleanse conditions from allies (Light field) or heal them (Water field).

is overall one of the best elite skills to take in instanced PvE ad Open World as it offers not only ranged damage option to your Engineer but also Crowd Control in form of and as a defensive option. It’s also a good choice for WvW as you can pressure your opponents a bit with 1500-range attacks.

While not particularly popular in the end-game, can wreak havoc in Open World, especially in conjunction with some traits. This Kit has very good “tagging” capabilities, allowing you to damage multiple enemies quickly in Meta Events to get as much loot as possible.

and  are the best damaging options from all Kits, supplemented with great tool belt skills,  and , both Kits are valid choices for Power classes, but is picked most often for end-game builds.

Gadgets

Gadget skills are available to engineers who want to have many sources of utility. This can be anything from saving yourself from death at the last second, crowd-control, mobility, condition cleanse, and boon removal.

    (skills)
    (tool belt)

is the most played of all Gadgets, not only is it a very strong heal, but it also offers a shocking aura and condition cleanse. Good usage requires proper timing and enemies attacking you, it shines in PvP.

One of the strongest Crowd Control skills at your disposal will be , not only it can do two attacks in a short window due to being an ammo skill, but its tool belt skill also has a Crowd Control effect, summing Defiance damage at close to 600.

while can seem useless outside of simply some movement boost, it actually can be used in multiple situations in the game, from something trivial as Jumping Puzzles, to “skipping” downtime elements of encounters in Raids and Fractals.

can be a solid damaging option, but because you need to use it twice (place mine and then detonate it), it is considered slow. But in Open World it might be a decent engage ability.

Turrets

Turrets are immobile, self-targeting devices that will perform one function on autopilot for as long as it remains alive. You can detonate them manually for a strong overcharge effect or pick them up. When initially summoned, each turret will also apply an overcharge effect.

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    (tool belt)

is one of the stronger option for Open World amongst Engineer’s healing skills, while maybe not healing for huge amounts, together with applies considerable amount of that should keep you at high health.

Your best damage option is , this turret is even used in some instanced PvE builds.

While not very popular, other skills of this type can be used for their secondary effects, like for a Smoke Field, and pulsing as great defensive option, or and for some Crowd Control options.

can be a good offensive option, but it has a relatively long cooldown. It will spawn a , , and a in the target area for 60 seconds. Each turret uses its overcharge effects upon first appearing. Its Tool Belt skill, , offers some healing in form of 6 healing supplies you can pick up to be healed and cleansed from conditions. If you struggle with Open World enemy, you can take this Elite for some extra burst damage and a bit more healing.

Specializations

Explosives

The Explosives specialization is all about, enhancing your …well, explosions. You may have noticed that some of the weapon, utility, and tool belt skills you have “Explosion” in their tooltip. These skills gain increased synergy with certain traits in this line.

The most common trait selection for Power builds is 323 with , , , and 322 for Condition builds with grandmaster trait .

You also gain access to , a minor trait that makes your first attack after entering combat and after dodge rolling deal extra damage. This extra damage can be amplified with trait choices such as and .

Firearms

Firearms trait line focuses on condition damage, ranged attacking, critical hits, and generation.

If you want to focus on doing as much condition damage as possible, choose traits like , , and (123). For power damage, choose 332 setup (, , and ).

For some extra generation, try using traits such as , , and (if using flamethrower frequently) , although those traits will usually be inferior, even in Open World scenario.

Inventions

Whether the defense focus is boons, healing, barrier, or anything else, Inventions is the line for it. This specialization is almost always present in Engineer’s heal builds, both in all types of PvE and WvW, it even sees play in PvP.

If you want to focus on healing, take traits 123 (, , and ) and equip a shield.

For Open World support, you might also consider or .

Alchemy

The Alchemy trait line is another defensive trait line that focuses on boons, Elixirs synergy, condition cleanses, and a little bit of healing on the side.

Due to the same focus as Inventions, it’s usually taken as a package with that trait line on heal builds, and the defensive capabilities it carries, are very useful in competitive game modes.

There are no obviously better traits in this trait line, and what you pick will depend on game mode and situation.

Generally, because of the diversity of and the base healing potential, it’s the default heal skill for all defensive support builds in PvE, and will boost its healing even more.

For some condition cleanse synergy, take traits such as and . Otherwise, other useful traits to have are , , and (if using lots of elixirs, or heal skill from ).

Tools

For increased effectiveness of your tool belt skills, take the Tools specialization. It emphasizes the generation of the and contains some minor utilities as well as some damage.

If you want to focus on using your tool belt skills more, take traits such as or , and with good timing of stacks, you can use to your advantage for quick bursts of damage.

For take , and, is really good if you use multiple gadget skills in Open World as it reduces all of their cooldowns and adds additional benefits to their functions.

Hidden Mechanics

Swapping between weapon set and your Kits counts as a Weapon Swap, allowing you to benefit from multiple upgrades offering some unique bonuses on that action.

You can use Weapon Swap to stow your currently equipped Kit instead of using its “source” skill, but that actually can be not desired because it may interrupt the currently casted weapon skill. For example, casting in and instantly stowing the Kit with and using other skills will simply queue that skill, but if you’ll replace with Weapon Swap, you will stow the kit, but will be interrupted.

Commonly is disregarded at first, but it’s actually a lot more powerful than on face value. It allows you to gain some synergy by using traits that interact with elixirs like because   and are elixirs. Another “hidden” elixir is in .

The “secret” mechanic of  is the fact, that if you use Weapon Swap as soon as you are beginning your backward leap from , you can actually cancel the leap and stay relatively where you started. This trick is useful if you are with a party and you want to stay near them for boons, healing, or other unique buffs.

The flamethrower toolbelt skill doesn’t have to be used immediately when activated. In fact, if you are roaming around a map between different enemy spawn points, you can activate the skill off-cooldown and wait a full 45 seconds before having to reuse it to refresh the buffed attacks.

is the only turret utility skill that scales with your gear attributes such as condition damage and expertise. This makes the flame turret an excellent damage increase if playing condition damage build.

Gameplay Tips

Engineers have an insane amount of flexibility when it comes to how they deal damage, provide offensive and defensive boons, and access unique utility seen in very few professions.

Use this flexibility to your advantage and swap certain parts of your build around regularly when different situations arise.

In addition, core engineers have access to all but two types of combo fields (lightning fields are only accessible through elite specializations). Learning which skills generate fields, which skills are combo finishers, and what combinations of fields and finishers are possible will drastically improve your knowledge of the game’s core mechanics and specific encounters.

If you don’t know how Combos work, make sure to check this guide:

Game systems and mechanics

Downstate, dodging, skills tied to weapon types, heart quests, and meta events, it all can be overwhelming for the new player. This guide attempts to answer all your questions, even those you don't yet know you have.

If you are ready to start playing this profession we recommend a starter build that was created to help with the traditional leveling experience of the core Engineer.

If you are looking for more builds for all game modes, make sure to check your build guides.