Guild Wars 2

This would be a new elite skill kit that, whilst not having any damage abilities, provides a set of powerful support utilities.

The kit functions like any other kit (so there are no restrictions on how long you can stay in it, or extended cooldowns on swapping from it); however, as it’s an elite skill, all the kit’s abilities have fairly lengthy cooldowns.

Abilities:

1: Jammer (cast time 3/4s, CD 30s)

• Range: 1000
• Single target, causes 1.5s daze.
• If cast on siege, acts as a siege disabler for 5s.

2: X-ray (cast time 1/2s, CD 40s)

• Range: 800
• AOE, radius 250
• Duration: 5s, pulses each second.
• Each pulse applies revealed for 1s
• Each pulse applies ‘X-ray diagnostics’ for 1s, which improves healing by 25%
• Light field

3: Radar drone (underwater: Sonar torpedo) (cast time 3/4s, CD: 60s)

• Range: 1200
• Fires out a slow-moving straight-line projectile.
• Chain, second is ‘Deploy drone/Detonate torpedo’.
• When the projectile hits something, reaches max range, or is manually deployed/detonated, it creates an instantaneous 3000 radius AOE, which hits up to 50 enemies.
• All hit targets gain a ‘marked’ effect and become visible on allies’ minimaps as red dots.
• The ‘marked’ effect lasts for 7 1/2 seconds.
• Enemies that are stealthed, blocking, dodging or evading when the projectile deploys are not marked.
• Marked enemies can lose their mark by stealthing.
• When used underwater, the projectile also creates a 200 radius AOE stun (1s duration) when detonated.
• The radar drone only marks targets above water or on the surface; likewise the sonar torpedo only marks underwater targets.

4: Target illuminator (cast time 5s (channeled), CD: 90s)

• Range: 1500
• Single target, channeled skill (up to 5s). Requires direct line-of-site on target to maintain channeling. Creates a ‘laser beam’ effect between the caster and target for its duration.
• When channeling starts, creates a ‘mark target’ effect that works the same way as ctrl-T – ie. your party/squad/etc members can hit T to target your target. Probably needs a different message though.
• All projectiles fired by allies that are targetting your target track it. So, grenades always land at their feet, etc.
• Non-projectile AOEs are centered on the target.
• This works even if the ally is firing in completely the wrong direction – the projectile arcs around to hit the target. If you’ve seen ‘The 5th Element’, you’ll get the idea.
• This only affects targetting and projectiles in flight – if an ally casts a necro mark, the mark on the ground does not chase the target around, humorous though that would be.
• This does affect siege. If you mark an enemy cata, then your allies’ trebs can hit it with devastating precision.
• Your allies may be arbitrarily far away from you to make use of the targetting, however, all ally skills are still subject to their own range restrictions.
• If the target stealths, goes out of range or breaks line of sight, or the channel is interrupted, then the effect ends. Projectiles still in flight go to wherever they were going at the point the effect ceased.
• If the beam is reflected, then the engineer becomes the target instead. Friendly fire is possible while the engineer continues to channel. Now would be a very good time to stop…

5: Gyroscopic module (no cast time, CD 120s)

• 10s stability
• Breaks stun

Actually I think this is an interesting concept. A non-damage kit with only utilities, as an elite without a cooldown on equipping/removing the kit could be feasible, I think.

I do have some concerns about the details, however:
1. Jammer – there are no other professions that can interact with seige or destructible objects in WvW at all. This inclusion might make engis too inclusive for WvW (even moreso than mesmer portal does). A group of engis could chain-disable a golem, for example.

2. x-ray. Increasing healing by 25% on allies is A LOT. Especially since the field lasts for 5 seconds. People would find ways to abuse that for sure. I think I modest 10% increase in healing, for example, would be safer. Even then, it’s a new field effect to be added to the game which might add too much complexity (because now other classes need to know that your field is special and gives +10% healing)

3. Radar Drone. The 50 target cap / 3000 range might make for some latency issues. I’m not a programmer, so I can’t be sure. It’s a cool idea, but if it lags someones’ game, it won’t be fun. Is there a way to decrease the range / target cap and still make it useful?

4. Target illuminator – this one I’m not sold on. The projectile tracking sounds really difficult to implement, prone to bugs, and likely OP. Especially for the non-targeted things you mentioned, like grenades, or siege weapon attacks.

5. Gyroscopic module – We could use stability, though with all the other creative ideas on this kit, a 120sec cd stun break w/ 10 sec stability sounds kind of unimaginative, to be honest. That said, if it would be useful, it’s not a problem.

This sounds almost exclusive for WvW. Many of the skills sound completely op and don’t feel like they fit the theme of the engineer at all. Engineers are not futuristic high-tech soldiers, and I don’t want them to become that.

Fun concept, but I wouldn’t get much use out of skills with such long cool downs. If we refined the skills for lower cool down, then I would certainly be up for discussion.