Guild Wars 2 Engineer Profession Announced

The latest profession to be revealed so far for ArenaNet’s Guild Wars 2 is the Engineer, which is focused on using all kinds of mechanical devices, including explosives and turrets. First, a trailer showcasing the profession’s skills:

And then a bit from the overview:

Masters of mechanical mayhem, engineers tinker with explosives, gadgets, elixirs, and all manner of deployable devices. They can take control of an area by placing turrets, support their allies with alchemic weaponry, or lay waste to foes with a wide array of mines, bombs, and grenades.

Like elementalists, engineers use a single weapon set at a time, but they complement this weapon set by equipping special utility and healing kits. These kits provide the engineer with special weapons and backpacks loaded with a full set of skills to replace their current weapon skills.

Weapon Kits These are utility skills that equip a new weapon in the engineer’s hands when activated. For example, the flamethrower kit creates a short-range AOE weapon the engineer can use to overwhelm foes. The flamethrower has skills like Immolate to damage nearby enemies, Air Blast to defend from ranged attacks, and Backdraft to suck enemies into range of the weapon’s powerful attacks.

Backpack Kits When activated, these special utility kits equip a backpack that replaces the engineer’s current weapon skills with a set of more specialized skills. For example, a bomb kit puts a backpack on engineers that allows them to deploy bombs with a variety of effects including smoke, concussion, and fire.

Turrets An engineer can deploy turrets: immobile allied devices that help defend and control an area. When a turret is deployed, the skill in that slot is replaced with its overcharged version. For example, an engineer can deploy a Thumper Turret to cause AOE damage, and then activate the overcharge version of that skill for a big thump attack that knocks down nearby enemies. An engineer can interact with deployed turrets, packing them up and moving them around. This removes the turret and the option to overcharge it triggering a short recharge before that turret can be deployed again. Only one of each type of turret can exist at a time.

Tool Belt An engineer tool belt is a set of special skills above the weapon skill bar. It enhances the effectiveness and functionality of the engineer’s utility and heal skills. The tool belt can add a self-destruct skill to turrets or a detonation option to all mines. When paired with the grenade kit, the tool belt allows a grenade barrage; with the med kit, it adds a self-healing skill.

If what ArenaNet has to say on the profession isn’t enough for you, GameSpot has a preview focused on it.

Arena Net’s designers suggest that the engineer profession resembles the ritualist profession, which was introduced in the Factions add-on for the original Guild Wars. Like the ritualist, whose ability to summon spirit creatures acted as a powerful pre-battle strategy, the engineer has a clear-cut strength in planning ahead of battles. Specifically, the engineer can swap in the proper kit skills and establish a defensive perimeter with turrets. The engineer reflects Guild Wars 2’s stronger emphasis on zoning and controlling space in battle; having a good sense of positional abilities, ranges, and spacing will play a larger role in Guild Wars 2 overall. It will likely make the difference between a mediocre engineer player and an expert engineer who can efficiently lock down an area, especially with proper intel on what sort of enemies will be incoming.

In the meantime, the engineer profession will have various skills and traits that make him useful to a party in other ways, such as the healing turret, which heals nearby allies; the random positive effects of elixirs; a glue-shot pistol skill that immobilizes enemies (along with a net-shot rifle skill); and even utility skills. These utility skills include “slick shoes,” which leaves an oil slick behind engineers as they flee; any enemies that step on the oil slick lose their footing and fall head over heels. They can also set themselves up to deal damage by dual-wielding a pistol in either hand or set themselves up as a defensive character by wielding a pistol in one hand and a heavy shield in the other. Engineers with shields can get between their teammates and hostile enemy magics; in some cases, they can absorb and even reflect harmful effects back at their aggressors.