Career question!

I have a BW to 23 and Engie to 14. Love them both, was wondering if any who have experience with either could comment of the trade-off survivability for damage that I am guessing is different between the two (PvP).

I'm usually not this indecisive about picking a main but really can't find much on the warhammer forums that doesn't come off as anything but general "BW's are OP" and "Engies are subpar" haha.

They both seem to be equally helpful in RvR, am I correct?

Since I like them both equally figured I'd go with the one that gives me a better chance of living through 1 V 1 combat endgame...even if it just means escaping. (I like to take rides for the scenery sometimes in RvR zones after happy hour).

My experience has been as such: Neither class is very hardy when played alone. 1 on 1, you are probably screwed. In a group the BW is a killing machine. Single target or aoe, take you choice, the BW does it better than any other class. But get used to seeing the respawn timer. BW's draw Destro aggro more than any other class plus the BW can kill himself as well. The Eng has some great abilities that provide tons of utility to the group. I love to have a Eng in the group. Lay down Napalm and Signal targets and set up a turret. The Eng is the ultimate "We own this real estate" class. I think you should play whichever one you like better, but order has plenty of BWs and very few Engs.

Well, I pretty well agree with Brunswik here, but here's my experience as such: (I stoled yer intro!) I've played with most of the better known, and most of the better played Bright Wizards on the server. They all have slightly different playstyles, most spec for area effect attacks to kill in quantity, though I've played with some of the better single-target BWs as well. Some of them like to go all out damage, and others like to stack some survivability. I think how all-out you can go is partly determined by the players that you typically run with. If your group is really good, you can drop some survivabilty in order to kill faster, which incidentally increases your group's survivability, since your enemies die before they can do much. My BW is only rank 11, so I've not got any specific advice on build. Yet. I see the phrase 'engies are subpar' more often than I think is reasonable. My first 40 was an Engineer, and while I primarily play my IB now, I still like to log the old engi in and kick some ass now and again. At rank 46 I find that I can usually score at the top of the list in damage and killing blows doing PuG scenarios. My build is a mix of Rifleman and Grenadier, taking both Snipe and Napalm. I feel like it's a good mix. Against squishies, I can lay on the long range heavy damage of the Rifle path, and in close I can really pump out damage on harder targets with the Grenadier path. I love loading up a zealot and dropping them with dots and hard hitting long range, then switch up to nades on a charging tank or mdps and getting 900-1000 crits. With the last major patch, the Tinker path got a huge buff and while alot of people just thought of it as 'oh, now the engi has a good pull', it's alot more than that. There are a couple close range ae attacks that got a nice boost, even Spanner Swipe, the melee attack, hits hard now. A good engi with a guard running Expert Skirmisher, specced into the Grenadier and Tinker trees can lay down some frightening bomb-style damage. I think when I get Korzak to 80, I'll be picking up the engi a bit more, and this may be the way I end up going for a respec.

hmm well seeing as I was a bit saddened to have inadvertently leveled through T2 Influence and rank so fast (this past weekend played ALOT as I recovered from a root canal), think I'll level the engineer to 20 or so then make a call. I do definitely find something about DB's from the rifle more satisfying than shooting fire heh Thanks for sharing your thoughts guys (and if anyone else has input please keep it coming : )

Korzak lies! He never played with any good Bright Wizards. ;) Hope you have a good healer or 2. A great group makeup, if you can get it is a guard for the BW. 2 healers, one to focus on BW and the other spam groups. The other 2 spots you can mix and match. Another DPS and 3rd healer work good for zerg busting. Been awhile for me tho, not sure how much has changed.

I play mostly with Aerror (Eng) and with a tank you can do some nasty small scale stuff with a tank and Expert Skirmisher slotted. Here's my thing for the Engy as a whole, they have/had a lot more in the way of CC of various types but with the current 2 sets of 30 second immunity timers some of their "surprise" CC got taken away. They are still super potent as they can be ignored by the unwary and end up with a ton of dots and some surprising burst, though burst is limited. BWs in DOT spec that can kite can solo very very very well. In group the facerolling crazy amount of dmg you can do in AOE mode is just that...OP. Through a guard on and you have a MRDPSAOE nightmare. DOT spec with the heal debuff, snare, and Stop Drop and Roll for the KD is very solo friendly. Your best form of survivablity is pre- kitting and keeping distance. I have sat and watched a dot/single target BW take on 2-3 people at once and kite them all to death. The tools are there to the point that the BW, in solo/small scale has nearly all forms of CC and debuffs needed for any fight: snare (not that great but good dmg potential and good to use on mdps as you wait for a cool down on another ability to finish up), root, KB, KD, aoe silence, heal debuff, self heal (if you chose to slot it) You know the more I list what they have easily within 2 viable specs makes me a little angry think I will stop there.

I personally love my BW! She deals alot of damage and you can hide behind walls and still cast. I would have to agree with others that you need to have a good friend that is a healer though. BW are really squishy when a tank comes along. But I can take out oil, rams and destro without them even seeing me or knowing that I am on them like glue:) Go Bright Wizards!!!