Guild Wars 2

Currently Kit Refinement is completely unreliable to anyone who runs with one than one kit. After the 100-nades nerf changing all of the kit effects from KR they overkilled it my giving it a single overarching cooldown shared between all kits. This makes the trait unreliable, and if these leaked trait/skill changes are true about super speed now breaking stuns (and assuming that it includes the KR super speed from Tool Kit) anyone running more than just tool kit wont really be able to rely on the super speed as an effective stun breaker at all. I would like to see Kit Refinement restored to each kit having an individual 20 cooldown.

Well, if the patch notes are accurate, we don’t actually know that the kit refinement version of super speed will work as a stun breaker. It’s possible only the actual toolbelt skill will.

If it does, that will provide something really good. However, since kit refinement would then be more powerful, I don’t think they would feel the need to remove the GCD.

Here’s hoping the do eventually decide to remove that, whether or not super speed from the toolkit gets a stun break or not.

If the notes are accurate then it doesn’t matter, because no one will ever play an engineer anyway.

even now it’s basically a spvp only class

They really messed it up when they gave it a global cooldown because not all of the effects for KR were op some of them were preparatory necessities like TK’s caltrops.

EG needs to get it’s heal back and TK needs it’s caltrops back. And they need to make only certain kits on kit refinement have a GCD the rest need their standard separate behind the scenes cooldown to function normally.

I do miss most of the old abilities more than the new ones, with the exception of med kit and FT.

I got a lot of dps out of grenade kit, and a lot of utility out of EG / TK, but I do acknolwdge EG was a bit strong.

Mattch.4019:

Currently Kit Refinement is completely unreliable to anyone who runs with one than one kit.

Coming from someone who runs 3 kits in PvP and 4 kits in PvE I can safely say it’s not.
I tend to get the desired effect by just equipping the right kit and the right time.
The only issue I have with KR is the little trait symbol. The “IV” logo coming up on the buff bar helps with WvW/PvP a great deal, but it can get confusing if other players want to support me with their traits.
The guardian’s “Strenght in numbers” trait shares the same “IV” logo, making me mess up timing on kit refinement all over.
More clearer and more specific logo’s on the buffbar for all these traits would make a huge difference.

Overall, I think the global cooldown is fine.
But since most people don’t share my sentiments, I could agree with lowering it for 5 seconds and making it a grandmaster trait. The effects are just that good.
I’d like to see medkit’s effect last a second longer, but that’s just wishful thinking.

As for toolkit’s KR effect, I highly doubt this will break stuns.

Ezeriel.9574:

If the notes are accurate then it doesn’t matter, because no one will ever play an engineer anyway.

even now it’s basically a spvp only class

I see you are the master of giving constructive feedback.
Maybe the problem isn’t engineer, maybe it’s you.

Siofra Crumble.2098:

I tend to get the desired effect by just equipping the right kit and the right time.

That’s the main issue though. It’s largely out of the player’s control when the right time pops up. If you need to swap out your medkit and your kit refinement has just popped up, you’ll use it on the short duration reflection and possibly not have it for the toolkit super speed that you actually wanted. Even though the icon is helpful, it’s not very obvious, so unless you’re always accurately counting to 20 in your head, you’ll always be unsure of exactly when your KR is going to pop. Normal skills don’t have this issue because you have a CD timer on them, but you don’t with KR, and you can’t elect to not proc it for a given kit swap if it’s up.

With a single kit build it’s much less of a problem, but you have to be more cautious in a multi-kit build so that you don’t accidentally waste your KR. It’s a very unwieldy trait.

Compare it to elementalists. If all their attunements shared the same GCD, they’d need to be very cautious of which one they swapped into. If they went into fire and then needed to go into water a few seconds later for whatever reason, they would’ve already screwed themselves. That’s why the attunements have the CD system implemented the way it is. If KR worked more like the elementalist attunements then it probably would be manageable enough, but it’s just a big annoyance right now.

The other problem with it is that it procs out of combat, whereas all the abilities are designed for combat use. That means if you’re speeding yourself up with speedy kits to travel, you can run right into people and not have your KR. Conversely, you can’t do something simple like drop your stimulant prior to combat or swap into grenades just before engaging because this wastes your KR for every kit you have (that mine isn’t doing any good way behind you). If there wasn’t a GCD then this again wouldn’t be as bad, but it would still be annoying.

I’ve been playing with the new kit refinement the moment they changed it and fell in love with it right then and there.
I used it before hand, but it always felt lacking actual “refinement”. (remember the medkit’s silly explosion)

I get what you are trying to say, Yams, but I just don’t feel the same way.
I use speedy kits just as well and it really doesn’t bother me that it pops out of combat. If I know that a fight is ahead of me in WvW I’ll wait until I’m in range to actually benefit from it. (For example, pop medkits reflective bubble as they take shots at me while I’m picking up the stimulant)
And if I get jumped? 20 seconds isn’t that long in a fight.
It’s a very minor inconvenience, to me at least. But then again, I’ll agree with you that is actually is an inconvenience.

KR is an extra tool to help you overcome the odds, but not something you should really invest your bets on. It’s a extremely good trait as is, but that depends on how you use it I guess.

The one thing i miss from the Kit Refinement setup is the Elixir Gun Super Elixir field.

Honestly i would love to trait that toolbelt regen on 40 second cooldown for said field.

Problem is, the new KR is far too situational and the activation isn’t suited for that purpose. We’re supposed to swap back and forth between kits, but doing so prevents us from using KR when those effects would be useful.

I see the same argument about attunement swapping for elementalits, and i am not sure i really buy it. Sure, it may have some benefit in the burst department. But if ANet really intended rapid-swapping they would have provided a better way of tracking cooldowns across swaps.

But unlike attunements, kits have basically no cooldown on swap. Also, the bonuses given by Elemental Attunement are fundamentally straight buffs, unlike the abilities given by KR – very situational ones.

I wish the change to Kit Refinement could simply come In the form of something fun to use. Easier said than done absolutely, but The numbers/cast times/area of effect/duration/cooldown are all very important in end game meta but Im tired of these nerfs or changes to these skills that makes them feel sluggish and cumbersome. Id be happy with a damage reduction ect if they kept a mechanic that felt natural and was fun to use.

Why can’t Kit Refinement reward engineers who choose to run with 25 weapon skills. (25 if you include Med Kit) with some kind of Kit specific When struck effect.
Example: “when hit your Flamethrowers fuel tank has a small chance to rupture leaving a small trail of fire that burns foes who walk through it.” Or “When hit you have a small chance to instantly refresh a single Med Kit skill.” These could all have internal cool downs of course. And (opinion) would be more fun to play and fight.

From my experience in PvP with a triple or even quad Kit build. I have so much control, and so many options and ways to inflict a noteworthy variety of conditions, and the combos are amazing even in triple Kit power builds. It’s really fun, playing with several kits because it almost creates a fighting game experience with uppercuts and low kicks but usually after 15-20 seconds you start to realize you have so much utility.. And nothing to do with it. Yes currently running more than 2 Kits is suicide in end game tPvP, but I think tampering with Kit Refinement closed the door on making triple\quad kit builds remotely viable.. :/ if they do take another look at Kit Refinement I just hope they make it more fun to use.

digiowl.9620:

I see the same argument about attunement swapping for elementalits, and i am not sure i really buy it. Sure, it may have some benefit in the burst department. But if ANet really intended rapid-swapping they would have provided a better way of tracking cooldowns across swaps.

That’s just it though, they don’t currently have a better way of tracking cooldowns across swaps. Implementing a global cooldown is much simpler. As far as I know, there is no other trait in the game that functions in the same way as kit refinement, so the infrastructure to support an attunement-like cooldown system is likely not in place.

The other simple solution is just to remove the GCD entirely. They would never had had to deal with that little, visually bland, partially informative icon thing if they had done this to begin with.

digiowl.9620:

The one thing i miss from the Kit Refinement setup is the Elixir Gun Super Elixir field.

Honestly i would love to trait that toolbelt regen on 40 second cooldown for said field.

I think everyone misses that (I used to use it all the time), but I think the argument for it being somewhat OP was fair. You could instantly clear things like fear without having to use a stun breaker, and dropping both super elixir fields gave you regen on par with troll unguent, so it was like having 2 healing skills on 20 second cooldowns each, provided you had no pressing need to leave the elixir fields.

I’ve made some use of the glue drip, but I eventually decided that I’d rather have the complete freedom of swapping to my kit whenever I wanted rather than micro-managing this draconic cooldown. On a few occassions, it caused me to lose focus of important details in a fight or hesitate for a moment while I debating whether or not to pop the KR.

What would you think of elixir X elite becoming the old kit refinement, and the trait removed?
Either that or reverting it to how it was before and making it grandmaster.

But I’d love it as an elite!