Guild Wars 2

Currently, due to the shoddy way that kits are implemented, engineers don’t get sigils or weapon stats when using kits. For me, as the screenshots below show you, that means a big deal.

And there is one thing that people ought to note and should learn to avoid:

Grenade Barrage for example is the engineers best damaging spell, provided all grenades hit of course. What this leads to for me is:

With kit: 6 stacks of vulnerability, trait procs and that’s it.
Without kit: Sigil procs, Go for the eyes procs, higher crit%, higher crit damage, higher base damage.

This is a huge difference, with there being 0 advantage and all the advantages of using it without a kit.

However of course, if you are throwing something like elixir B, and your weapon stats can’t affect it in any way, its fine. And if you don’t have healing, then its fine to use regeneration abilities without worry. But in general, if you need to do any form of damage, then don’t ever use a toolbelt skill with a kit.

This goes for all toolbelt skills. Never use them with a kit equipped if possible.

I noticed the exact same thing while using the Flamethrower. Even with the +200 toughness trait, my toughness actually went DOWN when I switched from my pistol/shield.

Mind you swapping out of grenade kit spam to hit grenade barrage, then swapping back to grenade kit spam, will probably negate any extra damage you got from weapon-buffed grenade barrage. You’ll be down 1 or 2 clicks of normal grenade spam.

But generally speaking, not a bad tip.

My tip for sigil is use Bloodlust. Nothing compares (technically nothing can because any other sigil won’t apply to kits). Build up 25 stacks using rifle, then swap to grenades and you’ll get the 250 power to apply to grenades.

never noticed this, but then i rarely roll with my rifle out.
cheers for the heads up!

Errr. I never noticed. I assumed that the equipped in slot item would provide the buffs and stats as normal. Thanks for pointing this out. I feel this should changed to work as fore mentioned.

This is a good example of why it’s not reasonable for Anet to keep sigils from applying to kits. How are they supposed to try and balance toolbelt abilities when the damage that they do is conditional based on what you have equipped during the attack?

All it does is force engineers to try and make elaborate macros or crazy finger magic in order to be switched to specific weapons for specific attacks. How can a framework like that effectively be balanced???

Very good tip, and something not many are aware of I think. It’s pretty ridiculous we need to do this, but I’ve found it’s also better to rip out barrage with the rifle equipped anyway, as your enemy expects it when you have the kit equipped. That and they’re already primed for dodging your grenades.

That is indeed a useful piece of information, quite logical in retrospect, given the current kits implementation. I guess this applies to all stats, like healing ? So If for some reason one were to equip a weapon with healing power, it would be better to switch back to it before popping any heal skills.

Less importantly, I wonder which stats are used in the spells created by the Kit Refinement trait.

Thanks for the info!

Changed title, topic is a bit more broad than just grenade barrage. It applies to all toolbelts.

What are you using as the stats on your gear? Power, Precision, Toughness?

Cenixx.2594:

What are you using as the stats on your gear? Power, Precision, Toughness?

Yeah.

‘Knights’ gear.