I  know the common response is "games are balance for endgame", but I would argue that you do not sit through 30 mins of a 2 hour movie that you do not enjoy when you are at home.  So why would I play a class for 20 levels that is inferior to the other classses?  Which class you ask?  The engineer.  I know bare with me...

I have played each class to 20 and by far the most difficult was the engineer.  The problems I noted were:

1) Poor burst skills with available weapons. Rifle is consistant, but has only one long range damage attack (hip shot), 2 cc's, and 2 medium to short range attacks.  Pistols are medium range with conditions.  Warrior rifle much more burst, warrior longbow better aoe and burst, ranger longbow better burst and aoe, ranger shortbow good damage and cc, rogue shortbow good mobility, aoe, and damage, list goes on...

2) Majority of utility damaging skills are weaker than the weapons until they are traited.  Grenades hit (combining the two you toss) for 1/2 to 3/4 of a rifle or pistol shot yet require a skill point and they must be aimed.  Flamethrower is decent, but you have to be close and do to your limited mitigation dangerous around melee mobs since the #1 is channeled (and is the most damaging ability).

3) Turrets are immobile in a game that relies on mobility in combat.  They take too long between shots/damage ability, and have very poor survivability to most mobs.  Ranger pets for instance have more utility, life, and damage compared to turrets, and they are mobile (not to mention you have utility skills and traits that buff them). Necro pets have about the same damage and life, but are mobile and easily replaced.  The new toolbelt skills with turrents are ok, but relatively weak and stituational at early game.

What I found was all 7 other classes have great burst abilities early on, whereas the engineer has cc and condition damage early on which is terribly weak since you have little to no traits or gear to support these.  Every other class was faceroll easy to pve to 20, even with only ranged weapons.  The engineer has practically no option to melee, yet it has the weakest ranged attacks up through level 20.

I still plan to play an engineer at launch, but compared to other classes it was a chore to level to 20 due to lackluster utility skills which require traits to be more effective than weapon skills (damage wise), and weapon skills that do not shine until 20+ level with traits and gear.

Early game is supposed to draw you into the game, not make you wish you were playing another class. 

So what are your thoughts on early game class balance?

Cheers!

I plan on making an engineer my main and have tried them in all of the BWE's except the first one.

I agree with your concerns and hope that they get addressed when they revisit the class again before launch. Expecially concerning the turrets which seem to do nothing more than take up a skill slot space.

Originally posted by vmoped

I  know the common response is "games are balance for endgame", but I would argue that you do not sit through 30 mins of a 2 hour movie that you do not enjoy when you are at home.  So why would I play a class for 20 levels that is inferior to the other classses?  Which class you ask?  The engineer.  I know bare with me...

I have played each class to 20 and by far the most difficult was the engineer.  The problems I noted were:

1) Poor burst skills with available weapons. Rifle is consistant, but has only one long range damage attack (hip shot), 2 cc's, and 2 medium to short range attacks.  Pistols are medium range with conditions.  Warrior rifle much more burst, warrior longbow better aoe and burst, ranger longbow better burst and aoe, ranger shortbow good damage and cc, rogue shortbow good mobility, aoe, and damage, list goes on...

2) Majority of utility damaging skills are weaker than the weapons until they are traited.  Grenades hit (combining the two you toss) for 1/2 to 3/4 of a rifle or pistol shot yet require a skill point and they must be aimed.  Flamethrower is decent, but you have to be close and do to your limited mitigation dangerous around melee mobs since the #1 is channeled (and is the most damaging ability).

3) Turrets are immobile in a game that relies on mobility in combat.  They take too long between shots/damage ability, and have very poor survivability to most mobs.  Ranger pets for instance have more utility, life, and damage compared to turrets, and they are mobile (not to mention you have utility skills and traits that buff them). Necro pets have about the same damage and life, but are mobile and easily replaced.  The new toolbelt skills with turrents are ok, but relatively weak and stituational at early game.

What I found was all 7 other classes have great burst abilities early on, whereas the engineer has cc and condition damage early on which is terribly weak since you have little to no traits or gear to support these.  Every other class was faceroll easy to pve to 20, even with only ranged weapons.  The engineer has practically no option to melee, yet it has the weakest ranged attacks up through level 20.

I still plan to play an engineer at launch, but compared to other classes it was a chore to level to 20 due to lackluster utility skills which require traits to be more effective than weapon skills (damage wise), and weapon skills that do not shine until 20+ level with traits and gear.

Early game is supposed to draw you into the game, not make you wish you were playing another class. 

So what are your thoughts on early game class balance?

Cheers!

Just like all games, give Anet some time to get it right. No matter how long you take in the development stage, balancing is a never ending process.

The class design is severely flawed, basically the idea seems to be that you sacrifice killingpower for versatility. Unfortunately that's a really bad deal for the Engineer - kits taking up one utility spot puts tight limits on how versatile you actually can be at any given time and thanks to various mechanics ( weapon swapping, element attunement, etc ) most of the other classes are quite flexible as well, just without sacrificing as much or anything at all. The prime example is the Warrior, the class has at the same time very high killing power and even more flexibility than the Engineer. Some stuff, like turret builds, are flat out broken outside of very narrow scenarios, i.e. defending an objective in sPvP. 

Between beta weekends 1 and 3 not much changed and the recent dev comments I've read seem to indicate ArenaNet are happy enough with the class and will just tweak some numbers until release. If you didn't like the Engineer in the beta weekends, it's probably advisable to stay clear of it for the time being and play something else. Judging by their record of class balancing in GW1 ArenaNet will completely redesign the class eventually, but when that will happen and where they'll take it ...