Guild Wars 2

If you feel like the engineer is missing something, or just could be improved in some way by changing its core design principles, this is your thread. No limits, go wild.

So, just for fun, how would you redesign the engineer?

Few personal ideas to start the thread:

Idea 1 – Kits in the mechanic bar

In one hand, I feel like kits should be much more important to the profession. In the other, I don’t like the tool belt from a design perspective, since it limits the core profession too much regarding future elite specializations.

In this idea, the tool belt skills would be gone, completely removed. Some of them would be added elsewhere, or merged with their respective slot skills. This would leave F1 to F5 empty, available for new stuff.

Engineers would then get two new buttons, F1 and F2, where they would be able to equip any kits they want. Yes, this means only two kits at a time. Why not more? Because engineers would be getting weapon swap too, with some of the kit skills moved elsewhere. Kit slot skills would be replaced by mines, a new trap-like slot skill family.

The kits would be upgraded as follows:

• Med Kit: Removed.
• Bomb Kit: Removed. Skills buffed and moved to mines (new slot skills).
• Elixir Gun: Removed. Skills moved to terrestrial harpoon gun (new weapon).
• Flamethrower Kit: No changes.
• Grenade Kit:* No changes.
• Tool Kit: Removed. Skills 1-3 moved to main-hand mace (new weapon).
• Mortar Kit: Replaced by a new Cannon Kit (inspired by Horrik). Similar skills.

Additionally, kits would get a new special menu, similar to the one rangers use for pets. In this menu, engineer players would be able to choose different skins for their kits, and also select if they want to display or not the equipped kit’s aesthetic backpack.

What about some of the special functions of the tool belt, specially regarding turret and gyro control? The easiest solution is to make turrets and gyros explode when using the special skill, and then reduce the cooldown so you can respawn them faster.

New kits could be added in the future using this system, like a machine gun, a sonic rifle, or a drill.

Idea 2 – Attunements instead of kits

Similar to the previous idea, the tool belt is gone too, but instead of being replaced by kits, it’s replaced by “perks”, which work similar to elementalist attunements.

These perks would modify weapon skills, and change depending on the active weapon. Perk examples:

• Ignition: Transforms rifle into flamethrower.
• Alchemics: Transforms rifle into elixir gun.
• Voltage: Transforms rifle into lightning gun.
• Mechanicals: Transforms rifle into sniper rifle.

The skin wouldn’t change with each transformation, but the animations and the way the engineer uses it would.

Some kits would be removed, but those which don’t fit into any weapon would remain as conjure-like skills.

Probably not viable for the amount of work it would require, but still interesting to consider.

Just some random ideas to begin the thread. Waiting for yours!

…

Full list of redesign threads:

Elementalist – Mesmer – Necromancer

Engineer – Ranger – Thief

Guardian – Revenant – Warrior

Core engi doesn’t need a redesign. Other classes just need to be brought down.

That the only thing keeping engineer viable in PvP and WvW is having to take all three defensive trees shows how weak the other trees are. In PvE condi ranger even outdamages us despite a simpler rotation and having far superior survivability.

We don’t need even more power creep. We just need elite specs further scaled back.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Core engi doesn’t need a redesign. Other classes just need to be brought down.

That the only thing keeping engineer viable in PvP and WvW is having to take all three defensive trees shows how weak the other trees are. In PvE condi ranger even outdamages us despite a simpler rotation and having far superior survivability.

We don’t need even more power creep. We just need elite specs further scaled back.

Or maybe it does, bieng so dpendant to kits seems quite unhealthy for the class, name me a build that has been in the meta with 0 use of kits.

Ivantreil.3092:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Core engi doesn’t need a redesign. Other classes just need to be brought down.

That the only thing keeping engineer viable in PvP and WvW is having to take all three defensive trees shows how weak the other trees are. In PvE condi ranger even outdamages us despite a simpler rotation and having far superior survivability.

We don’t need even more power creep. We just need elite specs further scaled back.

Or maybe it does, bieng so dpendant to kits seems quite unhealthy for the class, name me a build that has been in the meta with 0 use of kits.

Name me a build that has been in meta of other class with 0 use of weapon swap.

Ivantreil.3092:

Or maybe it does, bieng so dpendant to kits seems quite unhealthy for the class, name me a build that has been in the meta with 0 use of kits.

Zero, but that’s neither here nor there. The problem isn’t the use of kits but the overuse of them—and Scrapper actually solved that problem. The only kit I use in PvP is the Elixir Gun.

Samug.6512:

Ivantreil.3092:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Core engi doesn’t need a redesign. Other classes just need to be brought down.

That the only thing keeping engineer viable in PvP and WvW is having to take all three defensive trees shows how weak the other trees are. In PvE condi ranger even outdamages us despite a simpler rotation and having far superior survivability.

We don’t need even more power creep. We just need elite specs further scaled back.

Or maybe it does, bieng so dpendant to kits seems quite unhealthy for the class, name me a build that has been in the meta with 0 use of kits.

Name me a build that has been in meta of other class with 0 use of weapon swap.

0, and surely it’s intended, as it is with us with kits… heres the thing, they don’t have to slot their weapons in their skill slots in order to be efficient.

just make rifle engi super op and then engi will be fine for me

um… replace turrets and gyros with drones? they could work on a timer, but I think mobility is a problem for engineers. I understand gyros were met to fix this, but it’s only for max level engineers. seems unfair that low level players are forced into this ‘defend one area’ style of play for trying to aid others.

Let us choose a set of toolbelt skills like revenant legends but without swapping.
Choice 1: Toolbelt skills. (like its now)
Choice 2: Turrets.
Choice 3: Kits.
Choice 4: Gadgets.
Choice 5: Elixirs.
Choice 6: Elite spec utility skills.

Samug.6512:

Name me a build that has been in meta of other class with 0 use of weapon swap.

Anything involving elementalist/tempest.

Sorry, had to do it.

Step 1
Convert rifle to an actual shotgun, like the Scrap Rifle Field Test weapon in Tangled Depths (less the overheating). That gun feels more like what the engineer should be using as a primary. In fact, if I could only have one change it would be this.

Step 2
Convert all non-kit skills into kits. Alchemy kit, gadget kit, turret kit, and gyro kit.

Step 3
Allow the engineer to only equip 2 kits, similar to the Revenant legendary powers.

Step 4
Allow the engineer to dual wield weapons.

Step 5
Tweak cooldowns and damage output of all kits and primary weapons to reflect the changes.

Etaoin.4362:

Samug.6512:

Name me a build that has been in meta of other class with 0 use of weapon swap.

Anything involving elementalist/tempest.

Sorry, had to do it.

And revenant. On mine I used to only swap to staff for break bars in PvE.

Leave all the working things as they are. (Kits,elixirs) ((Maybe remove rng from elixirs))
Give gadgets offensive buffs across the board. Make gyros function like signets that appear like the function gyro over the engi’s head. And have turrets act like banners that give relevant group buffs.
Additionally i think every elite spec should add at least one new kit in addition to the other utility skills.

Bam no more minions no more problems.

I really dont like OP’s logic where he redesigns the working parts instead of the broken ones.

The redesign suggestions are too radical.
We have an issue that can be applied on all characters since HoT. Since the new skills and weapons are linked to the mastery trait we all are forced to skill around it. Every diversity that was found pre HoT vanished because of the new traits. You are not able to create a working build without the new mastery. You cannot use the old skills that are designed for the pre HoT time against the new overpowered PvP mastery builds. (of course there are exceptions but the majority vanished)

There are many skills that can just be used in special situations what makes them almost useless.
My suggestion would be a buff and fix of the useless skills without touching the working skills.

One good example is the Rifle
1. no dmg in PvP because bulled protection skills since HoT.
2. No protection since scrapper balancing -> High risk… no reward.
3. No build that can undo this weakness.

There are also traits and gadgets that can barely be used.
Example: Trait -> kinetic battery:
After evading an attack you can use the next tool belt skill without triggering the CD.
Big problem: The trait gets useless with the 8 sec reaction time and no skills available. This is a big problem in PvP and PvE.

If you would ask me, I would suggest following balancing changes.
Just touch the skills that the players never use and make them useful.

Id start with the explosives line, I dont see it’s use anywhere, PvP or WvW. Changing timers on things is not what is needed, rewriting traits in that line is what is needed.

The majority of the line is totally rubbish.

Siege Rounds: This is only useful if you are running mortar, granted it is ok but very corner case.

Thermobaric detonation: is absolutely terrible, just delete it and rewrite that trait. There are plenty of T1 traits better than this. Blast finishers are just not that useful, especially ones attached to your energy resource. Which you will be frantically using to avoid all the AoE spam in WvW nowadays. Back in the day you used to use blasts to stack might in fire fields for group play or drop waters for pushes. That game is gone, you have tempests overload water hitting for 6k. Look at bounding dodger, then go look at this trait, lel.

Shrapnel: Average at best, i guess you could use it in a condi build, but the line is not really conducive to condis. Other than boosting 2 tool kits that can provide some condi in grenades and bombs(that see very little use). But really if you are going condi you are looking at pistols(fireamrs line) and maybe flame thrower.

The absolute necessity of the Alchemy line, this needs to be addressed, when was the last time anyone made a competitive spec without this line? There needs to be some more incidental condi clear thrown around in other lines, maybe a trait that when you use a gadget you clear a condi, same as elixirs. Where is the engineer condi clear? How about some resistance? How about some pulsing resistance on AED or elixir H.

Gadgets, they need other abilities tied to them, not just timer shifts. Has anyone ever used the battering ram? It needs to bring more to the table other than a launch with average damage. I’m sure you would see it picked more if it had, “and clear three conditions from yourself” Added to the description. Gadgeteer, why does it have to build charges? Other classes you just pick the line attached to what you are using and have a 20% reduction in timers and an added ability. Soothing Disruption, Monk’s Focus, Pure of Voice, Brutish Seals, etc etc.

How big of a redesign are we talking about?

Because I’ve always sorta wondered what would happen if took the kits out of how skill pool and made them work more like Rev legends; pick only one or two kits that are swapped, leave the utility slot for gadgets/turrets/gyros/elixirs only.

Samug.6512:

Ivantreil.3092:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Core engi doesn’t need a redesign. Other classes just need to be brought down.

That the only thing keeping engineer viable in PvP and WvW is having to take all three defensive trees shows how weak the other trees are. In PvE condi ranger even outdamages us despite a simpler rotation and having far superior survivability.

We don’t need even more power creep. We just need elite specs further scaled back.

Or maybe it does, bieng so dpendant to kits seems quite unhealthy for the class, name me a build that has been in the meta with 0 use of kits.

Name me a build that has been in meta of other class with 0 use of weapon swap.

I think there was a Staff Ele build that was popular before HoT was released, that was Fire and Fire only… Though it was a dungeon speedrun build, and back when fractals went only up to 50 and IIRC Social Awkwardness wasn’t a thing yet (or at least not a thing that was found in practically every high-level fractal).

Nate.8146:

Step 1
Convert rifle to an actual shotgun, like the Scrap Rifle Field Test weapon in Tangled Depths (less the overheating). That gun feels more like what the engineer should be using as a primary. In fact, if I could only have one change it would be this.

Step 2
Convert all non-kit skills into kits. Alchemy kit, gadget kit, turret kit, and gyro kit.

Step 3
Allow the engineer to only equip 2 kits, similar to the Revenant legendary powers.

Step 4
Allow the engineer to dual wield weapons.

Step 5
Tweak cooldowns and damage output of all kits and primary weapons to reflect the changes.

I hate so much engineer rifle. It could be a sniper rifle, an assault rifle, or a shotgun, but instead, it’s… whatever that is, but it’s terrible.

I’m not sure revenant-like kits would work too well. Skill variety would suffer, and it could be too overpowered… But what if we merged weapon kits with your new slot kits as well?

So for example, the turret kit would give you turrets in skills 6 to 0, but it would also change skills 1 to 5, giving you something like a wrench in the main-hand, and a welding gun in the off-hand.

With the gyros, you would get something like a radio controller, which would let you control gyros manually to make formations, move to places, or whatever.

The problem is what to do with normal-state slot skills, because I think those should still exist, as to not make the engineer the same as the revenant.

Foefaller.1082:

How big of a redesign are we talking about?

Because I’ve always sorta wondered what would happen if took the kits out of how skill pool and made them work more like Rev legends; pick only one or two kits that are swapped, leave the utility slot for gadgets/turrets/gyros/elixirs only.

I like that idea a lot, too. Remove the tool belt, remove kits as slot skills, and give the engineer two slots, F1 and F2, where he can equip two kits. And then add a new kit with every elite specialization. You can see this elaborated above, in Idea 1.

I’m also wondering, following said Idea 1, if each kit could be customized much more.

For example, when I see the flamethrower, I always imagine how cool it would be if we could change the ammunition to poison clouds, or freezing liquid, but we would probably need new different kits for this.

However, if we’re going to use a profession-specific UI like that of the pet, we could take things much more further, and customize each kit with more than just skins. Just like, you know, the rangers have different drakes, each one with different breaths, maybe we could customize flamethrower ammunition.

As for the other kits, ammunition effect might not be the best thing to customize, but maybe we can focus on the type of the attacks, like the AoE shape or whatever.

There are only two changes I would make.

First I would return “kit effectiveness” to traits. What I mean by this is meaningful trait changes, so instead of “+10% damage to explosions” it would be “explosions have a 33% chance to cause 1 second of confusion” with a 1s cooldown to prevent it from being overpowered. Rewards constant pressure in a different way and rewards varied building instead of straight A or B type builds. I’ve considered such for other kits as well making them more effective in non-linear and interesting ways.

Second I would return the ability to heal to the Engineer. I would not bring back Elixir-Infused Bombs (RIP) however there’s no reason that healers can’t take constant, meaningful healing actions since every other class has “offense/defense” type healing. Whether you’re talking about passivity or active attack the Engineer needs something. I’ve a number of ideas on that but I don’t think any are particularly good or what I’d want to see in game. They’re too straight-forward and easily corruptible by player ingenuity which is what got EIB removed in the first place.

I noticed something that could be interesting to point out.

As you probably know, each profession has a different base health. There’s three tiers. For reference: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Health#Base_health_by_profession

There’s only two professions in the top tier, and four in the mid tier. This could be adjusted for symmetry reasons (not the best excuse, I know), and move one of the adventurers, either the engineer or the ranger, to the top tier, increasing base health.

What would you think of this? The engineer always had lot of problems dealing with conditions and specific combinations of damage, and this could help alleviate that problem.

Spending the last two weeks or so thinking on this.

Pretty much the one thing I feel strongest about is that a cap on the number of kits you can have slotted is a must. There has never been a happy medium between kits and the other skills for as long as I’ve played (which is just under 4 years) Either you have nothing but kits (and Supply crate/Healing Turret) or something like classic Static Discharge or spvp turrets that eventually gets a whole line of skills getting nerfed. If the rest of the engineer utilities are no longer directly competing with kits for a skill slot, then Anet won’t have to dance such a delicate dance of trying to make a utility with two skills as good as as one that brings six without out being broken.

Now, whether that means removing or cribbing the Tool Belt and making kits like legends and attunements, or simply preventing the player from slotting more than 2 of them I’m not sure, I think there are pros and cons to both. But I really think this is one of those cases where removing actual choice (i.e. bringing more than 2 kits) would translate to more effective choices in terms of builds and meta.

Foefaller.1082:

Spending the last two weeks or so thinking on this.

Pretty much the one thing I feel strongest about is that a cap on the number of kits you can have slotted is a must. There has never been a happy medium between kits and the other skills for as long as I’ve played (which is just under 4 years) Either you have nothing but kits (and Supply crate/Healing Turret) or something like classic Static Discharge or spvp turrets that eventually gets a whole line of skills getting nerfed. If the rest of the engineer utilities are no longer directly competing with kits for a skill slot, then Anet won’t have to dance such a delicate dance of trying to make a utility with two skills as good as as one that brings six without out being broken.

Now, whether that means removing or cribbing the Tool Belt and making kits like legends and attunements, or simply preventing the player from slotting more than 2 of them I’m not sure, I think there are pros and cons to both. But I really think this is one of those cases where removing actual choice (i.e. bringing more than 2 kits) would translate to more effective choices in terms of builds and meta.

To be honest, I think our next elite specialization should lock us out of kits but give us weapon swap.

i’d do only one simple change : Incendiary Powder in explosive again .

Phineas Poe.3018:

To be honest, I think our next elite specialization should lock us out of kits but give us weapon swap.

It wouldn’t work. Not after several years in which everything else has been balanced over the use of multiple kits. Our gadgets are terrible, and the few that got some niche use got even nerfed to the floor (hello, slick shoes). Elixirs are but measle self-buffs that have no use in party settings (other classes can provide those boons far better, and at the whole group). Turrets…that they’re used just to be detonated says enough. And even our weapons were balanced over kits, anyway (something we know due to some balance note released back then). And being a new specialization we wouldn’t be able to use gyros and hammer. We would have to rely on new weapons, and only those. But all the old things would end up being too weak for the aforementioned reasons.

If they ever did a redesign, they would have to decide what to do with kits. They can’t be optional and yet impact so heavily over the balance of the class in its entirety.
If they balance them so, they should end up being the class mechanic – something the class always has at their disposal. Or delete most of them and put the remaining ones as elite skills (thus limiting the amount of kits available at a time as a single one). Maybe that could be enough to not have to balance everything over kits, dunno.

It was suggested above, but following the “kits in the mechanic bar” idea, what if we got something similar for slot skills as well?

For example, a turret kit, that changes the slot skills instead of weapon skills, or both, giving you a wrench in the main-hand to repair turrets.

So, you would have:

• Two kit slots.
• Two types of kits: Weapon and Device.
• In the first slot, you would be able to equip weapon kits.
• In the second, weapon or device kits.
• Weapon kits: Flamethrower, Grenades, Energy Cannon (Mortar redesigned).
• Device kits: Turrets, Mines, Gyros.

However, this would probably lead us to the same problems revenants have now with slot skill customization. Instead, an alternative is to leave slot skills alone, but add kits that improve said slot skills. For example:

• Mechanic kit: Lets you repair turrets, and unlocks former tool belt skills for them. Main-hand wrench, and off-hand welder. Based on the Tool Kit.
• Minesweeper kit: Allows you to detonate mines remotely, instead of waiting for enemies to walk over them. Dual-wield minesweeper, detects invisible enemies, mines, and traps, and has an option to deactivate mines and traps.
• Remote Controller kit: Scrapper-only. Lets you command gyros manually, unlocking former tool belt skills for them.

Related family skills would change when wielding one of these kits, allowing former tool belt functionality, or new abilities. So, a placed turret would have a different skill when you equip the turret kit.

These kits wouldn’t be really worth equipping unless you’re running a full build of said slot skills, but they wouldn’t be useless either.

As for gyros, I think giving they should get a treatment similar to that of mesmer clones and phantasms. You would have specific gyros, summoned by slot skills, and then generic gyros you would summon automatically every few seconds, with a maximum of 3 at the same time. This would give the scrapper a distinct mechanic, no matter your slot skills. Said generic gyros would replace the function gyro.

Finally, we’re missing a slot skill family. We added mines, but we removed kits, so there’s one slot. An option is to make grenades slot skills instead of a kit, and upgrade them with chain effects so you can throw multiple of them in a row. The grenade kit could then be replaced by a heavy machine gun kit, providing a mid-range weapon kit in contrast with the melee flamethrower and the long-range energy cannon.

Foefaller.1082:

Spending the last two weeks or so thinking on this.

Pretty much the one thing I feel strongest about is that a cap on the number of kits you can have slotted is a must. There has never been a happy medium between kits and the other skills for as long as I’ve played (which is just under 4 years) Either you have nothing but kits (and Supply crate/Healing Turret) or something like classic Static Discharge or spvp turrets that eventually gets a whole line of skills getting nerfed. If the rest of the engineer utilities are no longer directly competing with kits for a skill slot, then Anet won’t have to dance such a delicate dance of trying to make a utility with two skills as good as as one that brings six without out being broken.

Now, whether that means removing or cribbing the Tool Belt and making kits like legends and attunements, or simply preventing the player from slotting more than 2 of them I’m not sure, I think there are pros and cons to both. But I really think this is one of those cases where removing actual choice (i.e. bringing more than 2 kits) would translate to more effective choices in terms of builds and meta.

Sometimes less is more, indeed.

I think most of the tool belt skills are just bad, and wouldn’t be missed. The ones that are good can be moved to new slot skills, added as chained skills (elixir drink + then throw), or merged with kit skills.

Manuhell.2759:

Phineas Poe.3018:

To be honest, I think our next elite specialization should lock us out of kits but give us weapon swap.

It wouldn’t work. Not after several years in which everything else has been balanced over the use of multiple kits. Our gadgets are terrible, and the few that got some niche use got even nerfed to the floor (hello, slick shoes). Elixirs are but measle self-buffs that have no use in party settings (other classes can provide those boons far better, and at the whole group). Turrets…that they’re used just to be detonated says enough. And even our weapons were balanced over kits, anyway (something we know due to some balance note released back then). And being a new specialization we wouldn’t be able to use gyros and hammer. We would have to rely on new weapons, and only those. But all the old things would end up being too weak for the aforementioned reasons.

If they ever did a redesign, they would have to decide what to do with kits. They can’t be optional and yet impact so heavily over the balance of the class in its entirety.
If they balance them so, they should end up being the class mechanic – something the class always has at their disposal. Or delete most of them and put the remaining ones as elite skills (thus limiting the amount of kits available at a time as a single one). Maybe that could be enough to not have to balance everything over kits, dunno.

I’m not so sure. We were incredibly dependent on kits prior to Heart of Thorns, but the only ones that regularly see usage in PvP and WvW these days are the Elixir Gun and, to a much lesser extent, the Tool Kit. The only reason kits are still dominant in PvE is simply because they’re a damage increase over any other choice—and that’s pretty much how it always will be.

But imagine if we got a weapon as strong as the hammer, that truly stands out on its own, but could be used alongside the rifle, pistol, and shield? Lesser used utilities like Elixir U and Utility Goggles might actually have a place with them having more room to breathe, and would give us a much more offensively-minded specialization that works in tandem with the defensive-minded scrapper specialization, while still giving us an alternative to kit-spam builds that core engineer, as you’ve said yourself, is kind of stuck with for balance reasons.

I’m not even expecting such a radical move for the new specialization, but if ArenaNet wanted to do something really different, completely forcing us out of kits and giving us weapon swap (and obviously powerful utilities to complement their disappearance) would make me drop $30-60 on the new expansion faster than anything else I can think of … and would be a much cleaner and balanced decision than a lot of the pipe dream ideas being promoted in this thread.

It would also offer a pretty healthy mid-point on the gradient scale in profession play styles between core kit engi spam and the passive-heavy gyro/scrapper faceroll, and help normalize engineer in comparison to other professions. After all, haven’t we been complaining for years that kits are way too important? Maybe forcing us out of them with a new elite specialization would give ArenaNet a prime opportunity to reimagine our profession and give us some toolbelt skills that are far more interesting.

A fundamental difference with engineer is that we have to use slot skills for absolutely mission critical kit skills. No other class has that problem.

They tried to address that with the hammer, but the result is that in PvP, hammer is the only viable meta build, and the rest of our few weapons have been left in the dust.

You know, i would be ok with kits if each kit where meant to do only an specific job and not an all-around job, like make them for specific stuff, if the where very specific other utilities would see play because X kit woulndt be able to do that job, or could do, but nothing compared to that gadget/turret/elixir, if we wanna build around certain kit, take that kit, but other kits shouldnt look completely right to take them without losing some value on them.

*Grenades: Only power damage.
*Bombs: Only condi damage.
*Elixir gun: Only Supp in boons/conditions
*Tool kit: Only Buffs to Turrets/gadgets/Toolbelts or Only Defensive skills.
*Flamethrower: Mix of power/condi damage (Wich already does, and i cant complain to this kit, what other theme could have this kit after all)
*Med: Only heals (Wich already does, it only needs love.)
*Mortar kit: Only fields

Another type of balance i would love to see is the buff of fields, we practically have access to almost every field (being the dark field the exception).

If fields mattered again, with relevant buffs, or with being able to pull out self combos withoout the interruption of other teammate’s field, we could prob build and pla something around fields, healer engi with water fields for example.

Vagrant.7206:

A fundamental difference with engineer is that we have to use slot skills for absolutely mission critical kit skills. No other class has that problem.

They tried to address that with the hammer, but the result is that in PvP, hammer is the only viable meta build, and the rest of our few weapons have been left in the dust.

They should have realized this when they designed hammer. We’ve only been complaining about it for a year and a half now and they still haven’t done anything to bring pistol/rifle/shield up to being playable.

why are people putting up these threads in different profession forums. every class is basically fine, they need their useless traits/skills buffed, but nothing as drastic as a redesign.

Stand The Wall.6987:

why are people putting up these threads in different profession forums. every class is basically fine, they need their useless traits/skills buffed, but nothing as drastic as a redesign.

It gives people something to talk about, I guess. I don’t think anyone actually seriously believes ArenaNet would do anything as radical as anything promoted in this thread. All of the core trait lines and utilities are staying exactly as they are.

If ArenaNet is going to adjust the mechanics of the profession moving forward, it will only be through elite specializations, which is why I suggested the idea of taking away kits in our next elite specialization but giving us weapon swap. Such changes aren’t very incremental and are quite striking, but are balanced enough in a way to give a new elite specialization a distinct, new flavor.

yea yea alright you win.

Ivantreil.3092:

Or maybe it does, bieng so dpendant to kits seems quite unhealthy for the class, name me a build that has been in the meta with 0 use of kits.

Rifle engi with full elixir utils.

Was great in WvW and PvP before all the projectile defense from HoT.

Okay. Here we go.

Just to be clear this would never happen. They can’t even manage numerical increases. Yknow general purity of purpose stuff. But one can dream right?

One of the promises with the skillsystem in gw2 was that there would be no “false options”, no set of skills that had no use. So what about those rusty pieces of junk over in that corner?

Turrets:

The turrets suffer from the problem that if they ever are effective at anything at all, they will have to be nerfed again (except for healing “turret” which is more of a healing bomb).

But what is the purpose of turrets?

To emphasise our area denial nature

This is why we are hated in pvp, because we where a mixup of engineer archetypes that usually focus on this thing, to deny a specific area. The question is how can we have turrets that do their job without kittening off the entire pvp community again?

My suggestion is this.

-Remove the baseline auto attacks from turrets.

-Instead of the overcharge, we get a remote as long as the turret is deployed.

-The remote allows us to control the turret like a “kit”, with he twist that all abilities originate from the turret. This means that we get a new set of powerful kitlike abilities offset by their stationary nature and line of sight requirements as well as their destructibility and recharge.

Now for example your rocket turret could become your very own missile silo where you can designate heat seeking missiles, air burst munition or rocket barrages that knocks people around like the old mortar kit. Your net turret now becomes a general purpose launcher for your crowd control needs, not only firing nets but also possibly glue/oil slicks/what have you. The healing turret now provides a haven of healing and defensive boons (its current function will instead be transferred to elixir H divided over the heal and toolbelt which is now a waterfield).

Additional functionality could come in allowing allies to interact and use them or to give a trait that allows them to retain some of their current passive nature (for the few who use them for casual pve or something) if absolutely necessary but i would advise against it.

Yes the turrets would become powerful tools for holding an area, but this removes their passive nature. And after all holding an area is the turrets purpose right? One might even say their pure purpose.

That’s pretty interesting. Sounds too crazy with the amount of skills each turret would have, but the core idea could be repurposed to other more viable options.

I really do think minions and other AI related elements should be simplified and their functionalities moved to the player if they can’t work properly.

Another option is to make sure you sacrifice something in exchange of them, so they don’t get constant nerfs. In the case of the necromancer, making minions cost life force is the best way, but with the engineer we don’t have something clear to sacrifice for deploying turrets.

If we go the way of the kits in the mechanic bar, requiring a turret kit to use turrets properly could be said sacrifice. So, nerf turrets when you aren’t using the turret kit.

Stand The Wall.6987:

why are people putting up these threads in different profession forums. every class is basically fine, they need their useless traits/skills buffed, but nothing as drastic as a redesign.

It’s just for fun. Talking about redesigns also helps us identify problems with each profession, and open the way for potential new mechanics.

I don’t think redesigns will ever happen, at least not in a long time, though I think they’re necessary to a point and really wish they did.

Revisiting the first idea, with some improvements:

Idea 1.1 – Kits in the mechanic bar

The basic premise is that the tool belt is removed for good, replaced by two F1 and F2 slots, where you equip kits. Weapon and device kit slot skills disappear, replaced by two new slot skill types:

• Mine: Works similar to traps, with a twist. Effect area is larger than activation area, so if you’re close to them and one of your allies activates it, you can get hit too. Additionally, mines are revealed if you walk inside the effect area, and you can attack and destroy them. Mine effects are inspired by the bomb kit, which is now removed.
• Signet: Passive effects, with an active skill option, which affects the engineer only. Some trait passive functions could be moved to them.

With that clear, there’s a total of 5 kits, one per slot skill type (elixir, gadget, mine, signet, and turret). Each kit would have specific synergies with its respective slot skill type, replacing each skill pf said type with new functionalities while you’re using the kit. Additionally, there’s 2 special kits, which can only be equipped in the F2 slot (so you can only use one at once) and don’t enhance slot skills in any way.

• Elixir – Elixir Gun kit: Instead of drinking the elixirs, you load them into the gun, providing new temporary random damage effects to your attacks with the elixir gun. Multiple elixir effects can be stacked.
• Gadget – Flamethrower kit: Replaces gadget skills with fiery versions.
• Mine – Minesweeper kit: Two-handed minesweeper tool. Lets you reveal invisible enemies, as well as detect and deactivate enemy traps. Designed to help mine management, including remote mine control, which lets you explode the mines manually.
• Signet – Grenade kit: Instead of applying the active signet effect to yourself, you throw packs with the same effects, that can be picked by any nearby allies. Inspired by the med kit, which is now removed, and tool belt elixir skills.
• Turret – Mechanic kit: Replaces the tool kit. Wrench in the main hand, and a welder in the off-hand. Designed to help turret management, including repairs. Instead of overcharging the turrets, you unlock turret detonation.
• Special – Energy Cannon kit: Replaces the mortar kit. Inspired by Horrik’s cannon, and this charr artwork. Slow fire long-range AoE damage. Slower movement when wielded.
• Special – Machine Gun kit: A huge gatling-style heavy machine gun, barrel included. Heavy ranged firepower when the engineer’s weapons aren’t enough. Slower movement when wielded.

With this model in mind, all elite specializations would provide one new kit to choose from. Some ideas:

• Remote Controller kit: Scrapper exclusive, helps with gyro management.
• Shock Gloves kit: For some technomage elite specialization. Huge robotic fists to punch stuff with.
• Mining Laser kit: For a miner elite specialization, channeled attacks that deal more damage with time.
• Missile Launcher kit: Homing missiles for an artillery elite specialization.

Weapon swap (plus new core weapons) could still be nice to have with this redesign, but it’s not mandatory for the idea.

Finally, the new kit mechanic would have its own options window, like the one rangers have for pets. In this window, you would be able to customize each kit by choosing different stats and skins, and turning on/off additional visuals like backpacks or masks included with each kit. Turret skins would be customizable from this window as well.

Let’s see if you guys came up with any new redesign ideas.

Where to begin:

Explosives:
Re-add the healing bombs and grenades

Make mines/bombs bigger
Mines form a series of three chevrons in front of the engineer from the toolbelt skill
Mines always cause bleeding/cripple no need for a trait
Mine trigger field much larger
Mine skill 1 throws three mines in front of the engineer

Big Bomb can be triggered manually no more timer in toolbelt

Exploding turrets all cause the trait effects when they go off bleeding/cripple/vuln/fire

Medkit:

1
Med Blaster
Heal allies with a wave of healing energy for a total of 4 heals the most powerful of which occurs at the end of the spraying. Heals more for each boon on that ally.
2
Bandage Gun
Fires a bandage at friendly characters, 1 second cooldown between each bandage.
3
Spray Stimulant in front of engineer in a 45 degree cone. heals, grants fury, and removes a debilitating condition (weakness, blind, vulnerability).
4
Spray Accelerant in front of the engineer in a 45 degree cone. heals, grants swiftness, and removes a movement-impairing condition (immobilize, chill, cripple)
5
Spray Antidote in front of the engineer in a 45 degree cone. heals, cures a condition, and applies resistance.

Flame Thrower Skill:

Skill 1
Places a fire combo field on the ground on the final damage tick that lasts 3 seconds in the direction the final blast was facing (similar to the line of fire that the mordremoth enemies seem to do alot in the new HoT expansion.)

Hammer skills:

#3
Causes stun on third hit and can sent out a fiery wave in a 45 degree area.

Toolbelt Changes:

Healing Mist:
Vent a healing mist, healing the engineer and granting regeneration to yourself and allies.

Incendiary Ammo:
Create a circular burn field that causes damage to enemies and is a fire combo field.

Trait Changes:

Juggernaut
Gain might and stability while wielding a flamethrower and Elixir
Gun.

Backpack Regenerator

Gain regeneration every 4 seconds when using a kit. (that way it can actually be synergized with other traits that give options when regeneration occurs. such as Energy Amplifier for healers)

Mecha Legs

Gain swiftness every 10 seconds outside of combat. Cripple, chill, and immobilize durations are reduced while in combat. (This will give better synergy with the trait Invigorating Speed)

Stimulant field (replacing Stimulant Supplier Trait)

Spray a stim field when you use a healing skill. (Spray Stimulant in front of engineer in a 45 degree cone. heals, grants fury, and removes a debilitating condition (weakness, blind, vulnerability).)

These are the main changes I would implement into the game.

We suggested a machine gun kit or turret at the beginning of the game years ago. I think it’s long long overdue!

Lonami.2987:

Revisiting the first idea, with some improvements:

---

Idea 1.1 – Kits in the mechanic bar

The basic premise is that the tool belt is removed for good, replaced by two F1 and F2 slots, where you equip kits. Weapon and device kit slot skills disappear, replaced by two new slot skill types:

• Mine: Works similar to traps, with a twist. Effect area is larger than activation area, so if you’re close to them and one of your allies activates it, you can get hit too. Additionally, mines are revealed if you walk inside the effect area, and you can attack and destroy them. Mine effects are inspired by the bomb kit, which is now removed.
• Signet: Passive effects, with an active skill option, which affects the engineer only. Some trait passive functions could be moved to them.

With that clear, there’s a total of 5 kits, one per slot skill type (elixir, gadget, mine, signet, and turret). Each kit would have specific synergies with its respective slot skill type, replacing each skill pf said type with new functionalities while you’re using the kit. Additionally, there’s 2 special kits, which can only be equipped in the F2 slot (so you can only use one at once) and don’t enhance slot skills in any way.

• Elixir – Elixir Gun kit: Instead of drinking the elixirs, you load them into the gun, providing new temporary random damage effects to your attacks with the elixir gun. Multiple elixir effects can be stacked.
• Gadget – Flamethrower kit: Replaces gadget skills with fiery versions.
• Mine – Minesweeper kit: Two-handed minesweeper tool. Lets you reveal invisible enemies, as well as detect and deactivate enemy traps. Designed to help mine management, including remote mine control, which lets you explode the mines manually.
• Signet – Grenade kit: Instead of applying the active signet effect to yourself, you throw packs with the same effects, that can be picked by any nearby allies. Inspired by the med kit, which is now removed, and tool belt elixir skills.
• Turret – Mechanic kit: Replaces the tool kit. Wrench in the main hand, and a welder in the off-hand. Designed to help turret management, including repairs. Instead of overcharging the turrets, you unlock turret detonation.
• Special – Energy Cannon kit: Replaces the mortar kit. Inspired by Horrik’s cannon, and this charr artwork. Slow fire long-range AoE damage. Slower movement when wielded.
• Special – Machine Gun kit: A huge gatling-style heavy machine gun, barrel included. Heavy ranged firepower when the engineer’s weapons aren’t enough. Slower movement when wielded.

With this model in mind, all elite specializations would provide one new kit to choose from. Some ideas:

• Remote Controller kit: Scrapper exclusive, helps with gyro management.
• Shock Gloves kit: For some technomage elite specialization. Huge robotic fists to punch stuff with.
• Mining Laser kit: For a miner elite specialization, channeled attacks that deal more damage with time.
• Missile Launcher kit: Homing missiles for an artillery elite specialization.

Weapon swap (plus new core weapons) could still be nice to have with this redesign, but it’s not mandatory for the idea.

Finally, the new kit mechanic would have its own options window, like the one rangers have for pets. In this window, you would be able to customize each kit by choosing different stats and skins, and turning on/off additional visuals like backpacks or masks included with each kit. Turret skins would be customizable from this window as well.

---

Let’s see if you guys came up with any new redesign ideas.

I’d start by making engie rifle an actual shotgun :P

With #1 hitting rather hard and 3 targets in front, range ~800-900 and ~45 degree cone.

It just needs more OOMPH on #1 and maybe even bit stronger blunderbuss (maybe added vuln stack to it?).

I honestly hate how engie doesn’t use his #1 attacks almost at all. Would also buff hammer #1 dmg, and decrease windup on #1 chain 3 attack.

My pve suggestions:

• Rifle needs to be a real medium range power weapon, close range skills need rework
• shield needs to scale better with power and provide more utility, maybe also get decreased cds
• kits need to have some downside, because currently the other skills can’t really compete with 5-skill bundles
• kits need to serve 1 purpose only – power dmg, condi dmg, defense, etc, not combination to promote using also other skills
• turrets need to get better survivability + if player uses the boon trait, it needs to compete with other classes like herald – needs to be stronger
• turrets need to scale with the player stats
• function gyro needs additional pve functionality
• gyros should not follow player but rather be stuck to player + return of dazes to them
• medkit’s toolbelt skill needs to be moved to one of the 1 weapon skills and medkit needs complete redesign to become viable group healing tool
• gadgets need either redesign or substantial buffs, for example to work good with SD, it could be an interesting build

Regarding Lonami’s idea:

First, to stop this from hijacking another thread, I disagree with the premise that the current toolbelt mechanic is problematic for future elite specialisations. If ArenaNet wants to use the F1-F5 skills for a future specialisation, all they need to do is replace some or all of the toolbelt slots with the new mechanics, making it part of the balance of that elite specialisation that you’re giving up regular toolbelt skills in exchange for something new. Wiping it out entirely for all engineers for the sake of future elite specialisations that may or may not use the function bar is, I think, throwing out more babies than the bathwater is worth.

There’s also the argument that engineers are ‘too reliant’ on kits. As Phineas Poe has said, though, I think this simply reflects game modes. In high-end PvE, DPS rotations are king – this tends to favour kits because that’s where the most damaging skills usually are, and often even briefly swapping to something to drop a high-damage, high-cooldown skill before swapping out again is worth it in that context. PvP, by contrast, relies more on being able to react to and counter what the enemy players are doing, and that’s where the other utilities begin to shine more… oh, and good luck pulling off a perfect rotation in the heat of combat against an opponent who actually reacts to what you’re doing.

Personally, I think it’s an essential part of the engineer’s character that you can choose how many kits you can have. Removing that would kill one-kit and no-kit builds as well as three- and four-kit builds. I would say that a lot of the non-kit skills probably could do with some improvements, but I wouldn’t like to see the fundamental character of the engineer changed so radically.

Regarding Phineas’ idea:

Trading out kits for a weaponswap in an elite specialisation is an interesting idea. It would probably have to go beyond what elite specialisations often do – it may need to provide more than one additional weapon so that the elite specialisation has a decent range of choice, for instance, at least one of those will have to be melee-oriented, and you’d probably want new utilities to replace the kits in addition to the six that elite specs usually get. (One way to do this, I guess, would be to allow such an elite specialisation to access skills and weapons from other engineer elite specialisations.) This could be an interesting way to portray an engineer that really is focused on having an array of gadgets more than an armory of weapons.

Regarding miriforst’s idea:

This one, I quite like, at least in principle. Thematically, I always wondered about how the turrets appeared to have sufficiently advanced AI that they could identify targets autonomously. I guess they could all have a cut-down golem AI installed, but full automation is certainly more advanced than most charr technology implies.

Mechanically, the problem with turrets in PvP was largely a matter of the combined effect of a couple of them and the defending engineer. If the turret is something that needs to be actively controlled, this a) means that the engineer isn’t getting an action economy advantage, b) means that turrets become something that you generally want to have just one or two of rather than filling your bar with them, and c) makes using turrets a much more active style of play. There are probably some complications and details to be worked out, but it is an interesting proposition.

A simpler concept on the same idea could be that each turret has a limited amount of ammunition. For instance, the rocket turret has six tubes, so let’s say it has six rockets loaded when placed. After being placed, the engineer gets six charges of a ‘fire rocket’ skill, which causes the rocket turret to fire a rocket at the target. Once the ammunition is exhausted, the turret can either be picked back up again or detonated. So instead of replacing your weapon skills when used, the turret acts a bit more like a stationary mantra.

To put my own 2c in…

If I had my druthers, I’d turn grenades back into throwing a single grenade, rather than the current state of chucking them out by the handful. This would require a bit of rebalancing of the explosives line, which may in turn require some adjustment of bombs, but I think it would be worth it in the long run. One approach that could require less rework, in fact, would be to make the grenade have a diminishing effect with distance from the point of detonation, modeled by the grenade generating three explosions of differing radii (a target directly hit takes all three, a target on the edge takes only the largest one). This is somewhat close to the current way in which grenades behave (a target on the center of the reticle is likely to be hit by all three, one nearer the edge might be hit by two, while one at or even beyond the edge could be hit by just one), but without the current randomness of the grenade spread.

When I look at engineer this is what I see.

-Rifle- Mid range, low damage, slow, single target and a projectile weapon.

-Flamethrower- good in pve but in pvp or wvw – against any opponent with a brain- isn’t. The king of fire that doesn’t set things on fire.

-Elixr rifle- See above with rifle save that it’s low condition damage. Still a projectile and(as with rifle) also knocks us on our backs.

-Grenade kit- good damage but it’s ground target only rather than targeted(unless underwater). Low range.

-Mortar kit, slow, predictable, avoidable, reflectable. Doesn’t work well in wvw against walls or in targetting the tops of walls. Not worth it apart from guaranteed point blank blasting of fields.

-Bomb kit, fun in pve but still a novelty weapon. Easily avoided by players when kiting.

-Tool kit- between scrapper hammer and the new turrets that wrench repairs what again? Certainly not our dignity. We’ve offhand shields and a kit which mimicks this but precludes us from benefiting from our shield traits when it’s equipped. It’s that bad.

-Healing kit. A passive aggressive finger to those who’d asked for more support ability? Lose even a shred of offence for something your team has to run over to use. Ground targeted. Trash. How trash is it?

Go full magi on an Ele, trait earth, water and temp. Take off autotarget, attune water, then spam staff at the ground near your team. There you are -Healing kit, but with a better two through five.

If ninety percent of our mechanical successes in competitive game modes are contingent on our opponents being either AI or stupid, there’s a problem.

How would I fix it? Keep gadgets/elixrs other base skills and get rid of Turrets/kits. I’ll be first to miss them but they won’t get any better, ever. The future of GW2 lays in giving profs access to new weapons hung on gimmicks and calling it a day.

Why not just give us the Ele treatment. Call it “Modes” and base them round the weapon currently equipped.

-Flamethrower, a mode of the rifle based off of the flame turret.

Blunderbuss, a rifle to shotgun mode specialised in concussion and applying bleeds- pulled from the thumper.

Fumigator/Acid/poison blaster, a condition mode for rifles taken from the angry half of elixr gun.

Frost thrower,(similar to caudecus boss) a water mode for rifle pulling from healing turret/kit. The last tick of the channel inflicts chill to enemies and a low healing tick to friends. Throws a circular healing condition clearing field(elixr gun) which applies chill to enemies.

Bazooka(Charrzooka)- rifle mode part bombs, grenades, missile turret, and mortar kit. Benefits from explosive traits. Regular arcing auto attack(mortar). A fire shot, a poison shot, a frost shot, and a high damage, longish cool down number five with two modes similar to thief shortbow; Homing shot(missile turret) with a chance for knockdown if allowed to travel to target. Tap the button twice while in flight to convert into MIRV -leaves behind a mine field.

Get rid of tool kit. Have its shield abilities overwrite those of base shield and give access to maces. ’Fix’r Upper’ was made for engineers.

This is the treatment we need going forward- so that as new weapons are given we’re actually able to use them/show them off while having more of a techno/engineer flavour. This rather than equipping and pasting a kit right over so that they’re little more than glorified stat sticks.

We don’t need tool belt skills. The right side bar should be our tool belt bar. Our current tool belt bar should be the “mode” bar for the weapon we’ve equipped. If this loses some wanted belt skills then either add them as base skills or make some of them stronger and turn them into elites.

This keeps it neat. If not traited Scrapper, no hammer. If not traited for the new elite then that weapons isn’t equipped. Weapon/trait line choice is important again. It’s either rifle, pistol – pistol(follows base rifle template- perhaps with a grapple where if traited has a ground/wall target for climbing ala deployable turrets/batman), pistol shield, or mace shield.

Suddenly we’re combatants again but at the same time we’re not kept from using fun engineer abilities and elites on the right side bar.

No weapon swaps. Equip one weapon set unless swapped out of combat. Just make the respective weapons and their modes viable options.

Turrets Overloads are no longer automatic, instead upon deployment Turret skills flip over to Overload, when Overloaded the skill flips over to Detonate until the Overload skill comes off cooldown

Weapons Weapon skills are reworked to provide a better flow & usage comprehension. Additionally Mace is added as a new weapon to the base class
Pistol

• Fragmentation Shot Applies 3 stacks of Bleed to main target & 1 stack of Bleed to secondary targets
• Poison Dart Volley Damage increased
• Blowtorch Moved from Offhand #4 to Mainhand #3 to make Mainhand pistol a dedicated Condition Damage weapon
• Static Shot Moved from Mainhand #3 to Offhand #4 to make Offhand pistol a dedicated Control weapon
• Glue Shot Combo Field: Poison

Shield

• Magnetic Shield Has a radius of 180 & provides Stability(3s) to allies within its radius as well as provides Protection(3s) to the Engineer
  - Magnetic Inversion Increased damage & provides Swiftness(2s) to allies in its radius
• Static Shield Combo Field: Lightning, stuns ALL nearby foes when discharged
  - Throw Shield Available while Static Shield is on Cooldown, can only hit one target(CD15s)
  - Throw Static Shield Available while Static Shield is active, same as current Throw shield, 2s Daze, Triggers CD10s on Throw Shield

Rifle

• Hip Shot Remove 20% chance from Combo Finisher
• Net Shot Add weak damage & Increase Immobilize to 3s
• Blunderbuss Deals damage to targets in the 550-700 range
• Overcharged Shot Self Knockback replaced with Backwards Leap. Combo FInisher: Leap

Mace

• {TBD} Combo attack based on Tool Kit, without Turret Heal
• Lightning Rod Creates a field of electricity around the Engineer dealing moderate damage to enemies within it’s radius. Combo Field: Lightning
  - Electric Arc Discharge your Lightning Rod to strike a foe at a distance. 400 Range attack, can arc 3 times.
• Statc Charge Leaps at your foe & discharging a static shock dealing damage to your main target & dazing(1s) all nearby enemies. Combo Finisher: Leap

Kits Kits are no longer slotted utility skills. You may slot 1 Kit in the new Kit Slot which is bound to your weapon swap key. The toolbelt skills from kits replace Kits as utility skills. Unlocking a kit unlocks the respective Utility skill.
Med Kit

• Med Blaster 45°Cone, 5 targets, Healing increased
• Throw Bandages AoE radius:180, it’s effects are applied instantly to all allies in range, Healing increased.
• Throw Stimulant Same changes as Throw Bandages
• Throw Accelerant Same changes as Throw Bandages, Combo Finisher: Blast
• Throw Antidote Same changes as Throw Bandages, Combo Field: Water
• Bandage Self Is now a new Utility Skill
  - Drink Antedote New Toolbelt Skill, half healing of Bandage Self, cures 1 condition.

Elixir Gun

• Fumigate Combo Field: Poison
• Healing Mist Is now a new Utility Skill
  - Acridic Mist New Toolbelt Skill, vents a toxic mist around you inflicting Poison.

Flamethrower

• Flame Jet line shaped Combo Field: Fire on the final attack Damage reduced and ramps up over time
• Flame Blast Damage increased
  - Detonate Flame Blast Damage increased
• Smoke Vent Is now Skill #4 Creates a Combo Field: Smoke
• Napalm Is now Skill #5, & creates a Ring of fire instead of a Wall, damage increased
• Throw Napalm Is now a new Utility Skill
  - Pocket Flamethrower New toolbelt skill, burns targets in a 45°Cone

Tool Kit

• Pry Bar replaces Box of Nails as Took Kit skill #2, CD reduced to 10s
• Throw Wrench replaces Pry Bar as Tool Kit skill #3, CD reduced to 15s
• Gear Shield Is now considered a Shield skill
• Magnet Is now considered a Shield skill
• Box of Nails Is now a new Utility Skill
  - Decoy Dummy New toolbelt skill, evade backwards & deploy a Decoy Dummy at your starting location that explodes after 2 seconds

Grenade Kit

• Grenade No Ground Target, is now a chain skill, first 2 attacks throw 1 grenade each, 3rd attack throws 2 grenades
• Shrapnel Grenade No Ground Target, Combo Finisher: Blast
• Flash Grenade Combo Field: Light
• Freeze Grenade No Ground Target
• Poison Grenade Combo Field: Poison
• Grenade Barage Is now a new Utility Skill, Combo Finisher: Blast
  - Concussive Grenade Throws a grenade that knockbacks enemies & causes Confusion

Bomb Kit

• Bomb Damage reduced, Combo Finisher: Blast
• Fire Bomb Damage increased
• Concussion Bomb Knockback enemies
• Glue Bomb Combo Field: Poison
• Big Ol’ Bomb Is now a new Utility Skill
  - Spare Explosives Set up a barrel of random explosives, Causes random conditions to targets in the blast area & has a 20% chance for random Combo Field

Mortar

• Orbital Strike Is now a new Utility Skill
  - Personnel Launcher Launch yourself to target location

Gadgets reworked to be more useful

Samug.6512:

Ivantreil.3092:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Core engi doesn’t need a redesign. Other classes just need to be brought down.

That the only thing keeping engineer viable in PvP and WvW is having to take all three defensive trees shows how weak the other trees are. In PvE condi ranger even outdamages us despite a simpler rotation and having far superior survivability.

We don’t need even more power creep. We just need elite specs further scaled back.

Or maybe it does, bieng so dpendant to kits seems quite unhealthy for the class, name me a build that has been in the meta with 0 use of kits.

Name me a build that has been in meta of other class with 0 use of weapon swap.

any ele or engi build

Panda.1967:

Turrets Overloads are no longer automatic, instead upon deployment Turret skills flip over to Overload, when Overloaded the skill flips over to Detonate until the Overload skill comes off cooldown.

…

The turret overcharge change needs to happen.

I like the change to the shield. It would make it much more useful and a decent defense choice IMO.

I’m not sure if I understand the kit change. Could player slot only one kit (into weapon swap-kit slot )?

Ivantreil.3092:

0, and surely it’s intended, as it is with us with kits… heres the thing, they don’t have to slot their weapons in their skill slots in order to be efficient.

And they in turn don’t have secondary utility/healing/elite slots.

Apples and Oranges, tbh.

leviathan.2148:

I’m not sure if I understand the kit change. Could player slot only one kit (into weapon swap-kit slot )?

That would be the idea, yes… I’m aware it’s not a very popular direction for kits, as many Engineers out there prefer to have 2-3 kits in a build… but, by restricting us to a single Kit, ANet would have to buff our actual weapon skills to be worth using… it’d also allow them to better balance our other skills as the current main issue is that everything our gadgets, turrets, and elixers can do, we can get from a kit +4 other skills… and usually the skill from the kit does the job better too…

So while it is an unpopular direction for kits, it’s also arguably the most beneficial…

I feel like changing pistol skills 3 and 4 is one of the changes we need the most.
That and Rifle rework. yeah, shield could use a buff but I’m not sure if it needs a rework.
Idk about you guys but I really don’t think ANYONE wants to keep using kits. Like, 1 okay, but if we could get away with not using any of them we wouldn’t.

Which leads to my point, we don’t HAVE to limit our kits to only one or nerf them or anything. My point is, if we had good weapon skills on a lower cooldown that out-dpsed kits people would start only using kits for their own specific niche purposes like if you want to apply AoE poison or use granade do add vulnerability or create fields with mortar or whatever.

The problem is that we have 1 good skill on our weapons, 2 that are okay to use if you have nothing else and then they have long cooldowns and a horrible auto attack. Then all that time you would spend doing a weak auto you swap though all your kits to “not do nothing”

If our main and offhand weapons gave us reasons to STAY on it we’d need reasons to change to kits when they are particularly needed. The problem is just that weapons are not worth using besides blowtorch.

I don’t think we need that big of a rework imo. The weapons change suggested might be a bit too far but that’s kinda the direction I wanted it to go.

The fact is, kits are not even that viceral or fun to use. Their animations are bleh and besides SFX most of them lack punch. Compare them to mesmer or ele skills, Warrior attacks and revenant animations… it’s just sad.

I’d love to not use kits at all, but that basically means I’ll be using the most boring weak-ass auto attack animation in the game for most of the time and basically do nothing when it comes to damage.

What I mean is: The problem with Engineer is that it unloads everything in 2 seconds then have to wait for 9 doing nothing. That’s where kits come in. If you could space your skills and weave your rotations with your weapons you wouldn’t need to use all the kits.
Unloading only the strongest skills on every kit just to make it so we deal ‘good’ dps sucks. We go out of our way to get that DPS and it’s not even fun.

Panda.1967:

That would be the idea, yes… I’m aware it’s not a very popular direction for kits, as many Engineers out there prefer to have 2-3 kits in a build… but, by restricting us to a single Kit, ANet would have to buff our actual weapon skills to be worth using… it’d also allow them to better balance our other skills as the current main issue is that everything our gadgets, turrets, and elixers can do, we can get from a kit +4 other skills… and usually the skill from the kit does the job better too…

So while it is an unpopular direction for kits, it’s also arguably the most beneficial…

I’m all for this change. But if that were to happen kits would need to get streamlined and each one should have entirely different use, i.e.: grenades – condi only, bomb – power dmg only, toolkit – defense only etc. Currently if engi wants to dish out the best dmg, he can’t use only 1 kit.

Kenshi Maru.5489:

I feel like changing pistol skills 3 and 4 is one of the changes we need the most.

I think they’re probably thinking about future weapons there. Sure, you might think that swapping them would be an indirect buff to shield now, but you might be glad to still have access to Blowtorch when a mainhand melee weapon gets introduced. Conversely, you might be glad to have Static Shot on the pistol when a new offhand is introduced that is more oriented to midrange damage rather than the relatively close-in nature of offhand pistol.

Granted, mainhand pistol could probably do with some buffs so it’s less of a case of being carried by Blowtorch, but I don’t think that simply swapping over Blowtorch and Static Shot would prove to be the right decision in the long run.

draxynnic.3719:

Kenshi Maru.5489:

I feel like changing pistol skills 3 and 4 is one of the changes we need the most.

I think they’re probably thinking about future weapons there. Sure, you might think that swapping them would be an indirect buff to shield now, but you might be glad to still have access to Blowtorch when a mainhand melee weapon gets introduced. Conversely, you might be glad to have Static Shot on the pistol when a new offhand is introduced that is more oriented to midrange damage rather than the relatively close-in nature of offhand pistol.

Granted, mainhand pistol could probably do with some buffs so it’s less of a case of being carried by Blowtorch, but I don’t think that simply swapping over Blowtorch and Static Shot would prove to be the right decision in the long run.

I kinda gotta disagree now because shield is just not used because it’s bad and main hand isn’t either because it’s also bad. They’d have to make an offhand that is very, very broken to be used with main hand pistol. You have no other choice there, just main hand pistol. So you need to have a better DPS than kits and blowtorch. Nothing will ever be better than this unless it’s stupidly broken.

This is mostly due to the auto on main hand being horrible. Also you assume that if they ever release a really good main hand weapon people would ever use shield. They won’t. It’s just bad in every case. And even if it was better it would have to be better than blowtorch.

The season why swapping the skills is good and important is that we have “purity of purpose” as the term the devs misused a while back goes. Because right now P/P is a closed package. It’s hard to imagine running one without the other, even if main hand is bad. And if main hand is actually bad there can never be another offhand that makes up for that.

Same with offhand. You can use blowtorch condi. But then what do you want for main hand? More condi? You already have kits. Power? Nothing really good to use with it. Utility? Eh, off hand also already has utility and a lot of dps.

The thing is, we need to bundle stuff on one or the other weapon so we go for exactly what we want when we choose weapons.

We don’t have many weapons, so being free to switch them around and not feel like missing out would be priority on elites