Guild Wars 2

Before you read, or skim, or glance-and-click-away: I don’t make these suggestions without some hint of trepidation. I’m still waiting for the Deployable Turrets trait to begin working as it should, for cooldown-reduction traits to function properly, etcetera. I have no idea what kind of glitches possibly incorporating any of these suggestions would cause, particularly the later, functional ones. Not that I expect these to ever actually see use – it’d be nice, but honestly? I’d just like mykittentraits to work right.

I’ve noticed one thing that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense about the Engineer class – its looks. Particularly when it comes to races besides the Charr. See, while I like the Charr, their technology has a distinctly industrial feel to it, an industrial feel I think doesn’t quite fit many of the other races.

Reasons I don’t think it fits, organized by race:
1: Asura: The Asura don’t even use the same kind of technology as the charr. Why are their turrets and so forth the same? Surely, a race of such brilliance could come up with something. One of your character’s backstory choices is “What was your first invention,” with the choices being a magic eight ball (or something), a weather-control device and a golem with noncombat uses. The culture’s areas are saturated with amazing technology – and they’re using Charr turrets. Why not small golems, like the ones that give directions, ported in with miniaturized Asura Gate tech and equipped with weapons appropriate to their purpose?

2: Humans: These might seem an odd group to go “Wait, why are they using those?” about, considering that they’re the most equivalent to the Charr in terms of both technology advancement and type – but I think it’s strange that a race that’s been semirecently curbstomped by the Charr hasn’t at least changed how their turrets look to distance themselves from them. The humans worship several gods, and have shrines to them; they consider them to have great impact on their lives, as far as I’ve seen (though I’ve only played through the tutorial with one). Why not have their turrets be designed to reflect their faith? Perhaps the Flame Turret is emblazoned with symbols of Balthazar, and so forth, instead of whatever pattern the Charr use.

3: Sylvari: These are actually probably the ones I could most see making sense as having the Charr-style turrets, if only because they’ve only existed as a race for a quarter-century. However, they grow their own kinds of turret as a racial skill – why not expand on that, and have them be able to do so as Engineers?

4: Norn: Similar to the Humans, the Norn have several Spirits that they worship, and believe to have much impact on their lives. They don’t have nearly as much against the Charr as the Humans, but they’ve still got their own culture, so it seems a trifle strange to see a Norn dropping a Charr thumper turret instead of, say, a portable shrine to Bear or Minotaur, or some other earth-shaking beast.

These suggestions have all, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, focused on the turrets, though the Kits could also use a similar modification – the Charr just look silly, being industrialists, with an Elixir Gun, while the Asura, a race of alchemagicians, make it look like it belongs, for example.

Speaking of Elixirs, that brings me to the function portion of my suggestion – which, as you may have guessed, is going to start with…Elixirs. Imagine that. It’ll be the next post.

Elixirs have one major problem, which leads me to only ever use three of the several available. This problem is unreliability. I only use Elixirs H, B, and X, see, because every single other elixir is too mired in unpredictability. I can rely on Elixir H to heal me – though I keep it swapped out for the Healing Turret, because it can’t be relied on to heal allies. I can rely on Elixir B to Buff me, and it’ll usually do something beneficial for allies. Elixir X, as well, can generally be relied on to get me out of a tight spot.

Elixir S, R, and I suppose C can all be useful – but they can’t really be relied on. There’s not much point to giving the Warrior a Stealth effect, is there? I haven’t unlocked R yet, so I’m unaware of what uses it may have aside from the one in the tooltip (Edit: Having unlocked it, it’s ironically the best Elixir, as it is a ranged revive), but C is far too, if you’ll excuse the pun, conditional, relying entirely on me having it equipped, and having a condition inflicted to me. I’m fairly free about changing my utility set, but things that situational are things that I avoid – though it does at least have one reliable use (the elimination of conditions).

Let’s not even get started on Elixir U.

So, my suggestion: Give the Elixirs a bit of a context sensitivity. I’ll just go ahead and list my thoughts on each that I actually have thoughts on:

Elixir H: Perhaps it should determine its effect based on health percentage – when used while at 75% health, perhaps it gives Swiftness, at 50% Protection, and at 25%, Regeneration (along with whatever heal effect it normally grants ). Oh, and perhaps a bit of a guaranteed healing effect for allies? It’s difficult to support allies in the pursuit of being not-dead when you have, I’d surmise, about a 33% chance of managing to heal them.

Elixir B: Just make it work like the tooltip says it does, or have it function based on the traitlines or statistics of the character affected in order to properly compliment the character’s strengths, in addition to Swiftness for all affected. If they’re specialized for Power, then give them Might. If they’re focused on Precision, then give them Fury. If they intend to outlast with Toughness or Vitality, then Retaliation.

Elixir S: I’m not sure how to put this one besides "It’s really silly for Warriors to get the Stealth effect and Thieves the Stability. " I guess I’d suggest that characters with greater Toughness get Stability, and characters with higher Precision get Stealth. This is one of the ones I rarely use, due to it taking me effectively out of the fight for three seconds of “Well, I guess I’m tiny now.” and not even having a particularly useful party-support effect.

Elixir C: I don’t even know. It’d probably be nice for it to also be context-sensitive in a manner similar to B, but I’ve never used it due to its highly situational nature. I’d probably have only had it be a 3-point skill, as well, for the same reason (you’ll only get a use out of it once in a while, except maybe in PvP, I guess; haven’t done any of that).

Elixir U: I never use this one, either, because its usefulness is offset by A ) I have cooldowns, thus rendering it essentially useless except for quickly starting them all and B ) I really don’t like being squishier, impossible to heal, or having no endurance regeneration while I’m starting all my cooldowns at once, likely leading to me running like a bat out of hell. The random effect field thing could also use some work, as its randomness prevents any attempt to even figure out what the hell the use of whatever field it puts up is without extensive testing outside of battle. Perhaps a similar context-sensitive effect, where it gives allies passing through the field context-sensitive boons and Swiftness, while giving enemies context-sensitive conditions and cripples them, though that may be a bit much – perhaps enough to qualify this one for taking Elixir C’s 6-point slot.

Elixir X: I’m actually just about happy with this one, except perhaps for how little explanation is given for some of the things (I still have no idea how that kittening tornado works, but it sure as hell is awesome). Also, that the only way a Condition-effect Engineer is going to be able to access Conditions with it is that they have to be the Plague, which requires water to start.

Speaking of things with which I am almost completely happy with: Turrets. Again. Yeah, that’s right, there’s more to this long, rambling post. Anyway, here we go.

My suggestions for Turret functionality being improved are as follows: A health readout in the window of the turret utility skill (so, for example, you place your Rifle Turret, and can then see an HP bar/gauge in the Rifle Turret Overcharge window, while clicking will still trigger the Overcharge), and a way to zoom to view the turret – perhaps right-clicking the overcharge skill window or something.

Oh, and I guess an ability to tell the turrets where to aim would be nice. Nothing like fighting a Champion Warbeast while your turrets focus on bringing in Centaurs from outside instead of hurting the monster. Would also be handy for, say, Necromancers, come to think of it.

(Edit: Hahahah wow. Did I really say that I was almost completely happy with these?)