Guild Wars 2

The primary issue: Rocket Boots, Slick Shoes, Personal Battering Ram, and Utility Goggles are underwhelming and have long cooldowns. As a result, most engineers stick to kits and elixirs as their choices for utility skills.

The secondary issue: Every class except for the engineer has signets that, much like the engineer’s Gadgets, have underwhelming effects and long cooldowns. However, those signets provide a passive effect, and through traits such as Written In Stone (elementalist) could even keep their passive effects while the skill is on cooldown.

The tertiary issue: Engineers only have one trait that affects gadgets (Speedy Gadgets), while other classes have 2-3 traits that affect signets. If engineers DO choose to use gadgets, there isn’t much they can do trait-wise to enhance their usage.

The ideal solution: Add a passive effect to most/all gadgets. This will make those skills slightly more powerful, and thus more likely to be used by players. Currently gadgets are extremely situational, and may go unused in some battles for that reason, so having a weak passive buff apply when the gadgets are unused will ease the pain. Additionally, one or two traits affecting gadgets should be added in order to make traiting for gadgets possible. It also makes sense that when engineers carry gadgets, they will help them passively, and not just when activated, since engineers are about automation.

Possible passive buffs:

• Personal Battering Ram: 5% chance of activating a “boxing glove on a spring” when critically hit in melee. This attack does minor damage, or maybe even a 1/4s Daze.
• Rocket Boots: 10% chance to gain Swiftness for 5s when you apply Burning on a foe. 5s cooldown.
• Slick Shoes: increase movement speed by 5-10% OR 25% chance to apply a 2s Cripple to foes that strike you in melee from the back or sides.
• Utility Goggles: 10% chance to gain Fury for 3s when hitting a foe suffering from Vulnerability. 10s cooldown.
• Throw Mine: 15% chance to create a small explosion at your location when hit critically in melee.

Alternative solution: Reduce Gadget skill cooldowns across the board, or improve the skills’ damage or utility.

Feel free to criticize this idea or add some of your own to make Gadgets worth using.

I’d vote for reduced cool down.

Soon.5240:

I’d vote for reduced cool down.

I like your name.

I really like the idea of giving passive effects to signets. Here’s how I’d do it:

• Slick Shoes: Reduce movement impairing effects by 30%.

• Personal Battering Ram: Increase Toolbelt skills damage.

• Throw Mine: 10% to 15% to cause a small knockback when critically hit in melee.

• Rocket Boots: Increase movement speed by 25%.

• Urility Goggles: Imunity to blind and weakness.

GuilguiS.2738:

• Urility Goggles: Imunity to blind and weakness.

May be a bit much.

I like the idea of rocket boots giving us a passive speed boost tho.

Honestly gadgets having passive boosts would be great (and make sense, since you can wear many of them), I wouldn’t even mind it being a trait like kit refinement (since we’re missing gadget traits)

Kinda like how every ele has to take the attunement boon trait.

I love the idea of passive effects. If rng is the idea, give passive chance effects. If the idea is to make gadgets more in line with signets, give trait bonuses.

For example, goggles give a precision bonus, ram gives crit dmg bonus, slick shoes give speed bonus, rocket boots give cond dmg bonus, and mine gives power bonus. They all synergize well with the respective traits tho the bonus might have to be less than their signet counterparts because the actives are better.

I support this, as do a lot of Engineer players already. Let’s hope they’re reading and considering a big positive change to gadgets.