Guild Wars 2

Since engis are the only ones not using signets, will the engineer’s specialization revolve around signets, meaning they will have passive buffs, and with the hammer wielding engi “preview”, would those mean the spec will be more offensive oriented? I’m calling it now, the next engineer specialization is Battlemaster.

Really funny. No signets, ty.

gadgets were intended to be engi signets.

ill bet on traps or tricks or arcane or physical or a new type

My bet/Vote goes for Mad Scientist.
Smacking his foes with mad, clunky but fierce moves.
Whilst also making use of bombs/mines or some other steampunk stuff.

I’m pretty sure engi will get the shouts. I’m calling it first!

Or a new utility that’s a jet pack doing aoe burn attacks and the ability to evade attacks by hovering haha we can only wish xD

I hope not. I want fun gameplay not signets

Rozbuska.5263:

I hope not. I want fun gameplay not signets

but then again, signets could be anets answer to all the carpal tunnel problems engineers get.

welp guardian got traps, so engi wont get traps

ukuni.8745:

Rozbuska.5263:

I hope not. I want fun gameplay not signets

but then again, signets could be anets answer to all the carpal tunnel problems engineers get.

Last thing I wanna see is awesome engineer transformed into boring one button class with dumb passive signets in utility slots. I hope Anet dont do this mistake.

Imho the elite spec will loose turrets and get Drones and i see them working as signets with active/toolbelt/passive skills

imagine the toolbelt skills are signets, too.
So you have a pair of passives tied to individual cooldowns for each slot.

There is a very specific lore (it’s on the wiki and in the game) that states why engineers do not and never will use signet. Because signets are magically embedded, and engineer as a base belive, shun magic. So no.

Given how guardians and mesmers were treated so far, and the tease of a full shout spec, it’s safe to say Engies will get a full set of another profession’s skill type.

Our heals already cover all of our existing types, a fact that makes the possibility of getting various skills of those types look improbable.

The key are of course those drones. They do seem to behave like passives instead of summons, but a full-signet spec seems questionable, as it’s not unique enough (all other profs have signets already, not having them actually makes us more unique) and the playstyle would be too passive.

However, it’s possible, especially after seeing how much Dragonhunter changes Virtues, that our elite toolbelt could feature Signet/Virtue-like skills, and those would be the drones.

Hmmmmm, floating drones replacing our toolbelt, now that sounds fun.

shouts would be very nice on engi, yea, or even stances

HaxTester.9816:

Since engis are the only ones not using signets, will the engineer’s specialization revolve around signets, meaning they will have passive buffs, and with the hammer wielding engi “preview”, would those mean the spec will be more offensive oriented? I’m calling it now, the next engineer specialization is Battlemaster.

I really hope not. I want to be able to use my kits with the hammer.

After seeing the Chronomancer and Dragonhunter, I’m excited to see what we get. But I have the sneaky suspicion that we are going to be the last to know about our specialization.

Shaogin.2679:

After seeing the Chronomancer and Dragonhunter, I’m excited to see what we get. But I have the sneaky suspicion that we are going to be the last to know about our specialization.

From the state of the traits, we’ve seen, it’s either engineer or ranger.
Both had rather unfinished trait lines.

I hope we get something similar to signets, but that do stuff instead of passive buffs.

Like a gizmo (that’s what I’m calling engineer signets now) that gives a drone when equipped.

Though that idea is still farfetched, we’ll probably get the drones as the profession mechanic.

I don’t like the idea of Engineer using signets. Signets are passive abilities, and engineers are one of the least passive classes there are, everything we have is very active. We have the most weapon skills and one on of the most active combat styles in the game (except for turret builds, but that is a discussion for a different thread), and I really want our Elite specialization to be along those lines, just in a bit different of a way than what we currently have. Us using a melee weapon is already different enough from our current combat style.

When watching the expansion’s announcement video I saw the Engi w/ hammer have some sort of drones near it.

I’m not thinking Signets, if only for lore reasoning. IIRC, Signets are basically static uses of magical energy. This, coincidentally, is why Engineer’s the only Signet-less Profession.
Now, commands (shouts) for those floating drone guys? That’s arguably quite possible.

Llendar Kisaragi.7910:

When watching the expansion’s announcement video I saw the Engi w/ hammer have some sort of drones near it.

Everyone that plays the game saw that. Thus the basis behind all the speculations.

Just thought of something. Even if they want you to mix and match, elite specialisations are, for all intents a purposes, designed as a fully playable loadout, with a new weapon and 5 utilities, so that you can use them as advertised.

That will have to apply to the engineer, only engineers can’t swap weapons, which would mean that elite engies are again forced to use the same kits over their new shiny utilities.

Possible solutions:
1) A new kit. It would be similar to the Elixir Gun, so that the kit’s skills have their own type. Like a Shout Kit (obviously stupid example), whose skills are Shouts.

2) More powerful toolbelt skills that turn the toolbelt into a second utility bar. You might not have 10 weapon skills, but you have 10 utilities to work with.

3)Mantras
Yes, it’s somewhat weird, and Mantras are not fan-favourites, but they work thematically (you utilise devices/store energy instead of magic) and solve the above problem. Similar to the toolbelt suggestion, Mantras give you access to multiple charges you can spend throughout a fight so you effectively have more utilities to work with. At the same time, the toolbelt helps to alleviate the biggest problem with Mantras, as you still have a usable cooldown even if you run out of stored charges.

The trailer drones could be Mantra charges.

I actually really like the Mantra Drone idea. Sounds interesting. And while many hate mantras, I’ve always liked the idea of them.

Yes the Mantra idea gets me really hiped up :-) the engineer could be crafting the drones while channeling the mantra or something and i think it could be implemented in really intresting ways.. giving my engineer a new fun toy to play around with…

Engi will probably be engi+guard those drones being better Spirit Weapons, Druid seems to be more ele+ranger.

Just to collect the already said, while adding some new thoughts:
We’ve seen drones in the trailer.
We’ve seen that class-mechanics for other classes can change rather drastically.
We know that signets (magical imbued stones) are impossible thematically.

Still, here is why EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE:
- Signets can behave like technical armor upgrades (power enhancement, whatsoever), that come with a active mode (maybe endurance refill since Power is a physical stat, most likely enhanced by stymulants, that definitively also could enhance our endurance for a short bit). Drones in this case would be either just a animation to show that this signet is active or an entire new class-mechanic.
- traps are highly unlikely since they are covered by guardians, still they could bring back the mine kit as utility-family. Again, drones would be that new class-mechanic nobody knows anything about.
- shouts could be command abilities for the shown drones
- meditations could be pre-charagable devices like shield-generators, could summon multi-purpose drones, or offensive attacks.
- stances could be medium-long lasting activation of cybernetic enhancements, like cd-reductions for our tool belt, immunities, superspeed or w.e. the drones would again be our new class-mechanic
- minons mobile drones, duh.
- tricks… tbh, that is what our gadgets are, so if we get them, I’d be mayoral disappointed.

I guess that covers all utility-types from other classes that would fit the engineer thematically, still the drones maybe just were 1 utility from a whole family of new stuff, so we all could tap in the dark…

got some hope for stances, imagin each stance as a type of suit or different drones around you

tl;dr → Not a chance.

ANet would have to be about as dumb as a rock to actually even consider Signets for elite spec for engineer. Engineer. There’s a whole world of cooler possibilities out there.

ANet seems to be focused on showing off their new tech with the elite specializations, and trying to promote more skillful and complex gameplay. Most signets right now are pretty passive and have relatively basic active effects. This isn’t to say that ANet couldn’t give Engis signet-like skills, but if they did, they would probably try to make them skillful or complex in some way, as they are with other professions’ elite specializations.

Arantheal.7396:

…
- minons mobile drones, duh.
…

That’s what I’m fearing we’ll get. Normally, it would be cool, but in the last patch, we all saw Anet’s solution for AI skills that become competitive.

I really doubt drones are actual minions, or only minions. If you watch the trailer, they seem attached to the character model.

Warrior physical skills

Personally, given the hammer incoming, I would think shouts are coming to us.

Signets sure won’t. The are one of the things engineers dislike, specifically. As the are magically imbued.

Engineer specializes to warrior and then gets a hammer, which means more surviability, stability and possibly resistance. Drones are some kind of mobile banners.

Warrior specializes to engineer and gets pistol and explosives.

RabbitUp.8294:

Given how guardians and mesmers were treated so far, and the tease of a full shout spec, it’s safe to say Engies will get a full set of another profession’s skill type.

Our heals already cover all of our existing types, a fact that makes the possibility of getting various skills of those types look improbable.

The key are of course those drones. They do seem to behave like passives instead of summons, but a full-signet spec seems questionable, as it’s not unique enough (all other profs have signets already, not having them actually makes us more unique) and the playstyle would be too passive.

However, it’s possible, especially after seeing how much Dragonhunter changes Virtues, that our elite toolbelt could feature Signet/Virtue-like skills, and those would be the drones.

I believe those Drones will function similar to Guardian’s virtues and have a passive effect and a active effect.

With that being the case, its a safe bet that they would get some kind of Guardian skill type. only thing that comes to mind is Signets.

Frightlight.3796:

Warrior physical skills

I want Physicals.

or Ele Conjures could be cool as well if done right.,..

I find it useful to look at not just the theming but the purpose – mesmer got long range, powerful AOEs and supportive buff AOEs which were gaps in their utilities. Guardians got offensive area control (rather than defensive as they had before).

From the things we have:
Gadgets – short cast, offensive abilities
Kits – Entire new weapons – generally offensive
Elixirs – Generally self targeted effects – mixed offensive and defensive.
Turrets – Stationary minions – generally offensive

So obvious missing areas are defensive abilities and support abilities. Out of the possible options:
Banner – support, might happen
Physical – neither, unlikely – though it could be changed to be somewhat defensive
Stance – Generally defensive, might happen
Shout – both support and defense, fits about as well as traps fit guardians
Survival – Occasionally defensive, but I can definitely see engineers speccing into making a reactor in a cave to survive or whatever.
Venoms – Neither, unlikely… but it is the opposite of elixirs so it fits thematically
Tricks – Sometimes defensive, unlikely.
Signets – Sometimes defensive, unlikely and pretty difficult to argue for the theme.
Corruptions – Neither, unlikely though there have been many out of control “corrupted” machines around
Arcane – Neither, unlikely, though a great deal of arcane stuff of the asura resembles engineered bits and pieces.
Deceptions – Both! Engineer could expand on the cloaking device and become another stealth class. >.>
Legendary jalis ironhammer skills – Often defensive and supportive. Hey he does seem to be hammer related it could totally happen. Like… ancient dwarven smithing or something.

So to sum up, engineers are definitely getting abilities from the revenant hammer spirit. Well. Maybe.

Most of those suggestions are too similar to Gadgets and Elixirs mechanically.

guildabd.6529:

Engineer specializes to warrior and then gets a hammer, which means more surviability, stability and possibly resistance. Drones are some kind of mobile banners.

Warrior specializes to engineer and gets pistol and explosives.

Nah it’s necro/war because GS+shouts+defiance bar=typical necro patch+lore. The drones are probably spirit weapons.

RabbitUp.8294:

Most of those suggestions are too similar to Gadgets and Elixirs mechanically.

That’s fair, it’s just trying to look at the options from a different angle so I didn’t exclude things for similarity except for pet type stuff

Sagat.3285:

guildabd.6529:

Engineer specializes to warrior and then gets a hammer, which means more surviability, stability and possibly resistance. Drones are some kind of mobile banners.

Warrior specializes to engineer and gets pistol and explosives.

Nah it’s necro/war because GS+shouts+defiance bar=typical necro patch+lore. The drones are probably spirit weapons.

Given the negative feedback most summons have, I find little evidence to support the concept of them giving engineers spirit weapons. As they have declared they are reworking turrets for HoT, it makes infinitely more sense to me that drones being seen are turrets.

Shouts seem to me to fit better with hammer then they would on a scholarly, cloth armor profession.

dancingmonkey.4902:

As they have declared they are reworking turrets for HoT,

i mustve missed that, sauce?

From the trailer I would say we get Drones, which would be like the Guardian Spirit Weapons

dancingmonkey.4902:

Sagat.3285:

guildabd.6529:

Engineer specializes to warrior and then gets a hammer, which means more surviability, stability and possibly resistance. Drones are some kind of mobile banners.

Warrior specializes to engineer and gets pistol and explosives.

Nah it’s necro/war because GS+shouts+defiance bar=typical necro patch+lore. The drones are probably spirit weapons.

Given the negative feedback most summons have, I find little evidence to support the concept of them giving engineers spirit weapons. As they have declared they are reworking turrets for HoT, it makes infinitely more sense to me that drones being seen are turrets.

Shouts seem to me to fit better with hammer then they would on a scholarly, cloth armor profession.

Specializations are getting new utilities types that they didn’t have before engi already has turrets, it makes more sense on necro due to lack of support and instant skills on necro, enjoy yours.

Please rewatch the trailer. You will see that those drones don’t just follow the engineer, they are attached to his model. No summon in game can keep up with your character this closely.

They even react to his animations by floating a bit higher when he lifts the hammer. And they are not present during the fight.

They just rendered turrets irrelevant, do you really think they are going to make a specialization of spirit weapons? Balance issues aside, specs are about giving classes something they lack, and you think Engineers will get a second summon type?

I still think it is possible that those drones could be a signet-type skill. Of course, they would not be magical items, since the engineer does not use magic.
When the drone (signet) is slotted, for example, the drone hovers around the character as a visual effect, and provides the signet passive. When activated, the drone could do something, for example sacrificing itself for the active effect. Not sure what the toolbelt skills would be, though.

Engineers getting shouts does not sound fitting to me, but that’s just my opinion.

I was personally hoping that we’d get traps, but apparently that’s for the Guardian instead.

RabbitUp.8294:

Please rewatch the trailer. You will see that those drones don’t just follow the engineer, they are attached to his model. No summon in game can keep up with your character this closely.

They even react to his animations by floating a bit higher when he lifts the hammer. And they are not present during the fight.

They just rendered turrets irrelevant, do you really think they are going to make a specialization of spirit weapons? Balance issues aside, specs are about giving classes something they lack, and you think Engineers will get a second summon type?

I see your point but they always surprise us and they started working on them before turret nerf.