Guild Wars 2

I believe it is time to scale kits to ascended level OR have the kits scale to the level of our equipped weapons. I would be very interested to hear why this is not the case already. I know the kits were upscaled at first launch of ascended weapons, then quickly brought down. To leave it like is now means a permanent disadvantage to kit using engies.

I am open to hearing why this might be OP or any other reason to keep our kits limited at exotic level stats so lets try to keep this discussion constructive. Hopefully with all the balance tweaks being done these days, a dev can comment on this issue.

spvp and inability/unwillingness

I can understand sPvP, so they can be exotic level there. However inability can’t be the reason, there were scaled to ascended for a very brief time, then brought back down. Maybe inability to scale to equipped weapon?

I assume they’ve been trying to figure out a way to check if you have ascended weapons and scale appropriately.

Pure speculation, though.

There is no reason this shouldnt be in the game already, and it’s a big middle finger to all engineers, that they’re not.

The solution for this is actually quite easy, they just have to add a “+x% damage while holding a bundle” stat to all ascended/legendary weapons similar to the bonus for 6 Superior Runes of the Engineer, with x=2,5% for one-handed and 5% for two-handed weapons.
This would give all classes equal access to the increased weapon damage, while leaving sPvP as it is.

^^ – this

anet time to separate spvp (which is so bad) and separate PvE

WvW is fine its just big zergs vs bigger zergs with a very very small % of ppl roaming and fighting upscaled / bad geard ppl anyway.

stop screwing enginers and eles over by forcing us into bundles make them count as proper weapons.

Bawi.9541:

spvp and inability/unwillingness

Just make it depend on equipped weapon? Seems the simplest option for me.

Captain Swag.5893:

There is no reason this shouldnt be in the game already, and it’s a big middle finger to all engineers, that they’re not.

+1

Why would kits scale with ascended gear? Aren’t kits simply replacing the abilities that other classes have? And they don’t scale…

cesmode.4257:

Why would kits scale with ascended gear? Aren’t kits simply replacing the abilities that other classes have? And they don’t scale…

Their weapons skills do scale with ascended gear, damage wise. So does our rifle, pistols, and shield. As are kits replace weapons swaps, thus weapons skills, scaling the damage if you have ascended weapons makes a lot of sense.

I’m betting this change will come, but it’s a long way out. Besides the damage difference is 10 if I’m not mistaken and we do benefit from the added stats. Not saying I do t agree I do think its lame that kits don’t scale but it’s not a substantial difference.

tattoohead.3217:

I’m betting this change will come, but it’s a long way out. Besides the damage difference is 10 if I’m not mistaken and we do benefit from the added stats. Not saying I do t agree I do think its lame that kits don’t scale but it’s not a substantial difference.

The difference in weapon damage between exotic and ascended/legendary is exactly 5%. This is a substantial difference and obviously big enough for ANet to remove beacause it supposedly unbalaced sPvP (patch that introduced ascended weapons initially raised base bundle damage by 5%).

The difference in stats that also benefits engi kits / ele conjured weapons is really negligible:

Molten Pistol (sold for 300 CoF marks)
Damage 876 – 1029
Power 90
Precision 64
Crit damage 5%
Effort to get: run CoF path 1 on 4-5 days (approx. 40-50 minutes time investment)

Zojja’s Revolver
Damage 920 – 1080
Power 94
Precision 67
Crit damage 5%
Offensive infusion +5 power
Effort to get: too much to put in here. Let’s just say it’s nowhere near 40-50 minutes….

The way direct damage is calculated, a 5% increase in weapon damage also increases all damage skills based on weapon damage by 5%.
Assuming your power with the exotic weapon is 2000, the increase in kit skill damage from the +9 power of the ascended version is 0.45%. The +3 precision increases crit chance by 0.14 %.

Splitting every kit ability between spvp/pve would effectively double the number of skills that they need to test and balance for engi. I can’t see them spending the time needed to do that just for PvE. It would be nice if they did, but I just can’t see it.

Edit: the same problems exist for other classes too with phantasms/pets/etc. Just another downside to the gear treadmill.

Nilgoow.1037:

Splitting every kit ability between spvp/pve would effectively double the number of skills that they need to test and balance for engi. I can’t see them spending the time needed to do that just for PvE. It would be nice if they did, but I just can’t see it.

Edit: the same problems exist for other classes too with phantasms/pets/etc. Just another downside to the gear treadmill.

There is no need for that. All we need is a stat added to ascended/legendary weapons, and this stat already exists: +x% bundle damage.
And please don’t mix up kits with pets. Kits are swap weapons for engineers and there is no reason why we should be stuck with the equivalent of exotics when all other classes have access to ascended/legendary damage.

I almost never use elementalist conjure weapons, do they have similar issue to kits in this respect?

coglin.1867:

I almost never use elementalist conjure weapons, do they have similar issue to kits in this respect?

They have exactly the same issue, so do warrior banners.
From patch notes after ascended weapons were introduced:
Fixed an unintended damage increase that caused engineer kits, elementalist conjures, and warrior banners to deal more damage than intended.

I thought so but I wasn’t sure, because I do not think I have actually tested a conjure weapon since they added stats to them some time ago.