I’m not fond of most of the kit and weapon suggestions that get repeated around here. I don’t think we need a “sniper rifle” kit, I don’t think two-handed hammers are appropriate, and I’ve said as much in other threads.
I’m not fond of detailed skill suggestions either; as an artist and writer, I’ve learned there’s a lot of truth to the maxim “If someone tells you that something is wrong, they’re usually right. If they tell you how to fix it, they’re usually wrong.”
That said, I asked myself: what DO I think engineers should have, if not the things people have suggested? What do I think engineers are missing? The answer that came to me seems obvious, so maybe it’s been mentioned before, for all I know.
We have explosives, both lobbed and placed, we have fire and we have chemicals, and even our trusty toolkit. What’s left? What crazy, often unpredictable yet dangerous force iconic to engineers are we missing?
Electricity.
Sure, we have static discharge and static shot, but I think we could do much more with it. There are tons of environmental weapons in the game for use in various hearts that make use of electrical effects—though it’s true most of them are magical. I think there’s plenty of room for a purely engineered electrically-powered kit, though. It would be a gun-kit, of course, since we have plenty of electrical-looking guns to pick from. The pack would have some combination of jacobs’ ladders, Van de Graaff generators or the like.
Is it a good idea?
That’s debatable. I assume, for instance, that it would have a lightning field. Lightning fields are currently only available to elementalists, so they’d lose some of their uniqueness. On the other hand, lightning is the only field that’s unique to a single class, so maybe it’s right that engineers should get access to it?
Would it give us anything, though? We don’t necessarily need more access to swiftness and vulnerability, but it would turn Jump Shot into a daze.
What else would the kit have? Lightning effects often come with blind, which, again, we already have plenty of, not the least on our own Static Shot. Dazes and stuns, on the other hand, we only have a few of. Poison, bleeding and burning, would be no-shows. It would be a pure power kit.
How would the kit function? People hate the randomness of elixirs, but I think randomness in targetting is a little better received. Bounces, for instance, always hit your primary target, though where they go from there is up to fate and positioning. It gives the impression of randomness, when it’s not actually random at all.
Now, we already have a bouncing electrical attack on Static Shot, but I think the general idea has merit enough. I’m thinking the big poster-child ability on 5 could maybe be a ground-target AoE that jumps to adjacent areas after a short delay. The direction it jumps would actually be random, but I think the inclusion of a guaranteed first location is enough. The short delay would be a feature, not a penalty, in that it would allow the same enemy to be hit twice if they pick the wrong direction to run in.
That is, of course, only one ability, and it’s the only one I’m going to mention. It wouldn’t be difficult to see the idea extrapolated (and maybe parted out) into the other four skills. If there was a kit-wide trait, it would probably increase the number of jumps on each skill by one—which could be very interesting if one or two of the skills are normally single-target by default.
What range would it do it at? Probably medium range, a little further than the flamethrower. Say, 600 base, 900 traited, or thereabouts. There should be some risk involved in using it, but the idea would be to keep the opponent reacting and running, so it should have a little leeway.
So there you go. That’s my suggestion—more a collection of ideas and statements designed to be taken and reinterpreted and resuggested, really, because while specific skill rundowns can be dismissed as foolish wish fulfillment, concepts are flexible and persistent.
Thoughts?
