Guild Wars 2

So I was playing my elementalist today and it got me thinking about how to change the engineer to better fit a versatile playing style. It seems we could take the attunments and apply them to our kits, i.e. replacing the too belt skills with kits and taking the tool belt skills and making them utilities. This would allow us to easily swap between 4 kits at a time while giving us access to more utility slots. Rather than the “attunments” being based off currently equipped weapons they would simply replace your weapon abilities with their current abilities.

For Example: Lets say the F1-4 skills are now Bomb Kit, Grenades, Tool Kit, and Flamethrower. You would have theoretical access to all those abilities and now Grenade Barrage, BoB, Throw Wrench and Incendiary ammo would now be utility options.

PROS: This gives us access to more utility slots, Kit swapping traits and runes would still work and need little to no changes, we would have access to many more skills at a single time, we would have access to utilities like grenade barrage.

CONS: The kit swapping cooldown would have to be significantly higher (like the elementalist) which would negatively effect things like speedy kits, kit tool belt skills would need a reworking since they are now utilities, we would have to rework elixirs and gadgets since we would no longer have access to the tool belt, We would have to drop at least one kit from our choices.

I just wanted to discuss this option and how you think it would affect the engineer. Namely I see two very big problems: 1. Gadgets and Elixirs would have to be a bit different since we don’t have the tool belt anymore and 2. We may have to lose a kit. The other option with problem number 2 would be to keep all the kits and decide which ones to add to your F1-4 slots.

Let me know what you think folks.

What’s the problem with adding an F5 button for another kit? It’s not like someone’s limiting it.

I like this idea, actually.

People constantly say, that changing kits is the whole point of our profession. Yet one can avoid kits completely. Sounds bad to me.

Your way is much more suited to GW2 reality and gameplay, than the kits\tollbelt we have now.

Isslair.4908:

What’s the problem with adding an F5 button for another kit? It’s not like someone’s limiting it.

the problem with adding a F5 option is it may be too much for multiple aspects. Do you really want to have to worry about switching between 5 kits at a time? I’d personally be ripping my hair out trying to do so. 4 may even be too much, but it seems manageable and seems like it would be easier to implement since they already have the setup for F1-4. I think Med kit is fine as is and shouldn’t need to go to and “F” slot so It would only be one kit.

Also regarding the “not” having to use kits statement: I totally agree, and it was a thought I had when thinking about this set up.

So would we be able to choose the kits? Do we have to have the kit equipped to have access to the toolbelt skill? what if I don’t want the toolbelt skill can I use a regular utility skill? Seems OP at that point if I could have bomb kit, elixir gun, tool kit, and FT plus for instance Elixir B, Elixir U, and Elixir S.

Do I want that? Sure do!
Is it balanced? Absolutely not.

The Slyfe.7231:

So would we be able to choose the kits? Do we have to have the kit equipped to have access to the toolbelt skill? what if I don’t want the toolbelt skill can I use a regular utility skill? Seems OP at that point if I could have bomb kit, elixir gun, tool kit, and FT plus for instance Elixir B, Elixir U, and Elixir S.

Do I want that? Sure do!
Is it balanced? Absolutely not.

The idea would be to drop one of the kits and have F1-4 being the other 4, leaving Med Kit as a heal option. I would say we don’t have to have the kit equipped to have access to the tool belt skill as a utility, which also means you could have access to Elixir B, U and S. It may seem a bit OP but as stated before the F1-4 kits would be on an increased cooldown to swap, probably 15 – 20 seconds, so not as OP as you might think.

I’ve been thinking about this myself.

I like having my toolbelt skills. And I like certain kits…

Got me thinking, regarding Engineer versatility.

Why not have specific toolbelt skills associated directly with the kit/weapon?

e.g. Rifle w/toolbelt skills such as Incendiary Ammo, Analyze, Surprise Shot, and Toss Elixir B. You could have three, then the fourth slot for the ‘Toss’ function of Elixirs to round out the toolbelt. Also swap out the damage and range of the warriors rifle with the Engineers. Same could be done with the Pistols. This would apply to Kits only. Gadgets would still have their uses, but the Gadget’s toolbelt ability would be applied to the appropriate Weapon Kit.

This is just something I was thinking about the other day. I see myself as a decent Engineer(I still love the class no matter how much it needs to be fixed ), but find myself doing 5-7 things to get some decent damage while taking a multitude of hits from everyone else who use maybe one or three attacks to achieve what they are needing to(e.g. Thief CnD, then Backstab, then Deathblossom giving them incredible damage(and a built in Evade) that requires three buttons to achieve a variety of results?).

At any rate, that’s my point of view, and just an idea.

was thinking about exactly this today when i made an elementalist

i love this idea +1

Anet’s too lazy playing their warriors/thieves for an update like this.

Nah, just kidding. Actually, I think it’s a good idea along with Ejiofor’s. But this is probably impossible as this one is a MAJOR update. It will take months for tests before they can even launch it, it’s actually like remaking the engineer class rather than fixing it but if they do, engineer class will be viable again. But then again, I don’t see Anet committing on something like this just to improve one class.

Off-topic:
When a warrior/thief gets buffed by Anet, expect a nerf for engineers

Well, as long devs never come to this corner of forums, all ideas and suggestions are kinda meaningless.

And reworking a whole profession would just mean admiting, that they were very wrong with our development. Which also has a very small chance of happening.

I don’t like this idea. It would make us too similar to Elementalist. I don’t like giving up utilities for kits, but I don’t want our profession to be a clone of another one, even if the other one is better all-around. I’m assuming we’re allowed to customize which kits would be on the bar, which is slightly better, but still too similar to Ele. There are some other ideas for kit swapping I’ve heard somewhere or thought of, but they were too close to weapon swapping to be considered “unique” at all.

Now, I’ve gathered from the forum that the toolbelt skills are supposed to make up for losing a utility skill when taking a kit. The problem with this is that these toolbelt skills are fixed and can be utterly useless when choosing skills/builds that complement the kit (I particularly dislike Incendiary Ammo, I’m not even certain if it triggers on the FT auto attack).

I think a better way to give us versatility is to allow us to customize our Toolbelt skills, rather than making us an elementalist clone. Would this make us overpowered? Possibly, we’d have effectively 8 utility/heal skills compared to everyone else’s 4. Now that I think of it, this complements the Elementalist’s method of versatility. Eles get more weapon skills than anyone else, which is why they are considered “kings of versatility.” Engineers could have the other side, with their versatility based on utility skills rather than weapon skills.

It’s not a perfect idea, but I’d rather see the profession keep whatever uniqueness it has, rather than just being a medium armored Elementalist. Plus sometimes it’s cool to combo regular utilities with toolbelt skills. I don’t want to lower how many toys we can field at any given time.

Kyon.9735:

Nah, just kidding. Actually, I think it’s a good idea along with Ejiofor’s. But this is probably impossible as this one is a MAJOR update. It will take months for tests before they can even launch it, it’s actually like remaking the engineer class rather than fixing it but if they do, engineer class will be viable again. But then again, I don’t see Anet committing on something like this just to improve one class.

I see what your saying as it would be a MAJOR update, however It seems that it would still be the same class, having access to kits and elixirs and what not, mechanically different in some ways but the same at the same time.

Also thinking about how to fix the loss of tool belt skills for gadgets and elixirs and what not how about adding traits that allow us to use the effects along with the ability. For example: Drop Acidic elixirs and make all elixirs ground targeting, you get the buff from the elixir when you toss it for the additional effect, same could be done for gadgets, turrets are a completely different story and I can think of a way to make them work in this scenario.

WithoutAssumption.7936:

I think a better way to give us versatility is to allow us to customize our Toolbelt skills, rather than making us an elementalist clone. Would this make us overpowered? Possibly, we’d have effectively 8 utility/heal skills compared to everyone else’s 4. Now that I think of it, this complements the Elementalist’s method of versatility. Eles get more weapon skills than anyone else, which is why they are considered “kings of versatility.” Engineers could have the other side, with their versatility based on utility skills rather than weapon skills.

It’s not a perfect idea, but I’d rather see the profession keep whatever uniqueness it has, rather than just being a medium armored Elementalist. Plus sometimes it’s cool to combo regular utilities with toolbelt skills. I don’t want to lower how many toys we can field at any given time.

This is a much simpler idea and would also get the effect that I would like to see as well. Kudos to you sir. Some good ideas in this thread and I appreciate the feedback.

MentalPause.9183:

Isslair.4908:

What’s the problem with adding an F5 button for another kit? It’s not like someone’s limiting it.

the problem with adding a F5 option is it may be too much for multiple aspects. Do you really want to have to worry about switching between 5 kits at a time? I’d personally be ripping my hair out trying to do so. 4 may even be too much, but it seems manageable and seems like it would be easier to implement since they already have the setup for F1-4. I think Med kit is fine as is and shouldn’t need to go to and “F” slot so It would only be one kit.

Also regarding the “not” having to use kits statement: I totally agree, and it was a thought I had when thinking about this set up.

i can’t say i’d mind having big ol’ bomb on an f5 key. but with the addition of another f key means another utility slot, which means engineer would be overpowered on paper.
reality is we wouldn’t be, warrior getting another utility, would be demonstrably overpowered. on top of what they already are

I’ve suggested something similar in the past.

The bottom line for me is, I don’t want to see kits gain a cooldown, and I don’t think many players want that, either. I like being able to swap between kits as often as possible, and I feel this is one thing that serves to set us apart from the Elementalist class (which is basically forced to blow all it’s cooldowns in one attunement before switching to another.)

What I proposed was giving us 2 kit slots up where our toolbelt currently is (the limit of 2, as opposed to 4 for the Ele, is hopefully so we can keep cooldowns off of kits.) Then, offer the “toolbelt” skills as regular utility skills (now classified as “gadgets”) so players can still take them if they wish.

Change the traits that affect the “toolbelt” to affect “gadgets” instead, and make all of the previous toolbelt skills into gadgets (so there’s no effect on builds like static discharge builds.)

This offers several advantages over the current system. You would be able to choose your toolbelt skills (now regular utilities) independent of your choice of kits. You would be able to use multiple kits while still taking stun breakers in PvP. You would be able to take turrets and kits simultaneously.

Also of note: the 2 kit slots would also be able to contain regular utilities. The last thing I would want to do is hurt elixir builds by limiting the number of elixirs available to only 4. This would give these builds a total of 6 potential slots for elixirs, admittedly down from the current 8 available slots. This would be offset, though, but being able to take better elixirs in those 6 slots (6 unlinked slots = 4 pairs of linked slots?)

-Travail.

I like the idea—engineers could use a class mechanic that doesn’t cost utility skills, like everyone else. After all, no one expects rangers to have to slot a pet in their utilities.

Becoming an elementalist without swap cooldowns would be nice, but would obviously create problems. We would basically be a better version of an ele. Obviously, the devs want to avoid creating two professions that function exactly the same, especially if one is better than the other.

I’m not sure what the solution is. Maybe we get some turrets “for free”? Maybe some toolbelt skills? Maybe some kits are included in our build?

Everything seems to have a problem, and besides that, the current engineer playstyle is that there isn’t one. There are absolutely zero skills that all engineers must have in common (unlike mesmers, guardians, etc) and that’s kind of cool.

Maybe we could just get an extra utility slot? Or the option to trade our main weapon for a utility, or our elite skill for a utility?

I feel a little desperate when I realize I would trade my weapon and my elite skill for an extra utility slot each.

Unfortunately, I don’t think they could make the Engineer more versatile without stepping on Elementalist toes – thus why my solution to the problem is to make the Engineer good at Preparation instead, via additional, unique-to-Engineer traitlines (complete with a secondary set of trait points). I have a thread on the suggestion boards about it.

Other than that, I suppose I like the idea – it’s just unlikely to happen, thanks to the exacerbation of already extant similarities between Engineer and Elementalist. Making them any more similar would make one redundant.

I think similar ideas have been discussed. But kits as our F1-F4 would make us elementalists in medium armor.

I think the following changes would make us awesome.

1. Weapon Swap slot is a “free” kit. You equip whatever kit you want into there, and thus we effectively have a second weapon like 6/8 other professions do. This helps our versatility, while at the same time not giving us a real advantage over other professions. We could still use our other utility slots for other kits.

2. Unlinking toolbelt skills from utility skills. Having a customizable toolbelt seems very engineer to me. That would make us a heck of a lot more versatile. Playing DPS, but want to stick to ranged? Throw Wrench but no Tool Kit. Need a quick recharging heal to compliment your Elixir H? Bandage Self. Hate incendiary ammo, but love Flamethrower? That’s cool, take your flamethrower and pop in something more useful into your toolbelt instead.

I can’t imagine how cool it would be if we could customize our toolbelt. Discharge build with bandage self, throw wrench, personal battering ram and net attack, while having elixir b, tool kit and grenades. Maybe we would get OP but if they tweak this right i guess it would work.