Guild Wars 2

what exactly is your point @VIVorcha.7853? the more skills you have the stronger you are?

VIVorcha.7853:

If you don’t run four kits, you no longer have more skills than an Elementalist.

Which is why the weaker damage output by our main hand weapons hurts, why HGH in an elixir build is rather crucial.

google.3709:

what exactly is your point @VIVorcha.7853? the more skills you have the stronger you are?

No, but that seems to be what everybody else thinks.

just smh…

VIVorcha.7853:

google.3709:

VIVorcha.7853:

NevirSayDie.6235:

The toolbelt is nothing more than extra skills. Kits are also just extra skills.

The engineer mechanic is having more skills available at one time than other professions, whether through kits or through other utility skills with their toolbelt counterparts.

The engineer was beautifully designed. Look at how much variety our engagements have compared to any other profession.

Elementalist with their four attunements say hi.

And guess what? An Elementalist with four attunements still gets to fully choose their utilities. An engineer with four kits doesn’t get to choose any skills at all.

lol oh god… why do people who know the least about the class are always the ones trying to talk…..

every kit utility gives 5 skills + 1 (toolbelt)… and you do get to chose ur utilities lol no one can force you to run 4 kits, and with the little knowledge you’ve shown about the class, i very well doubt you could handle it… so much ignorance

If you don’t run four kits, you no longer have more skills than an Elementalist.

And Elementalists always have access to 25 skills, regardless of their choice of utilities and healing.

Math is not hard.

So wait… the whole point of this is to complain about not having the baseline 25 skills of an Elementalist? But… uh… we’re NOT Elementalists.

The better math comparison to not be disingenuous is to claim that other classes have 5×2 skills (double weapon sets), Between 1-4 F# skills (remember not all classes have F1-4!), 1 healing, 3 utility and 1 elite. Assuming that kits are supposed to function as a secondary weapon set, we should be comparing at least apples to crabapples of a baseline skill set of 18 (assuming the average F# is 2.5 rounded to 3). With our baseline of 14, taking a single utility slot as a kit bumps us up to 19. That seems to track nicely with all other classes, Elementalists excepted (and I don’t think any Engineer wants the light armor restriction nor lowest health pool caveat of Eles either….).

But this is why I think it’s a problem to dissuade Engineers from being expected to perform to their maximum utility by using at least 1 kit… that’s just a fundamental part of the way we were built. Elementalists were built vastly differently from the other professions as well. We don’t have to have F# or Traitline passive (an argument I find weak on its face) commonality across the spectrum of other professions to make our profession either valid or not broken (as seems to be the point of the OP’s wrath).

I’m missing the argument here. So what? Many people refer to “kits” as “the profession mechanic”.

Who cares? Does the label really bother you that much?

-Jeff

jaif.3518:

I’m missing the argument here. So what? Many people refer to “kits” as “the profession mechanic”.

Who cares? Does the label really bother you that much?

-Jeff

I think the argument is a function of whether the Engineer is acceptable or broken in terms of successful application of profession mechanics… If kits are considered core to the profession, then dev focus on kits makes sense. I think the argument becomes that “since kits are not, then don’t work on them.”

jaif.3518:

I’m missing the argument here. So what? Many people refer to “kits” as “the profession mechanic”.

Who cares? Does the label really bother you that much?

-Jeff

Actually what bothers me is the passive implication of the term. Every time some misinformed player calls kits or primary mechanic they give the development team a pass for all the shoddy design, poor balance, unless traits, more useless skills, and lack of build diversity that engineers suffer from. Maybe some of you haven’t noticed it yet, and maybe some simply have more tolerance than I do, but when you’ve been forced to use kits to the exclusion of other skill types for the better part of a year it really, really starts to get old.

And I don’t feel like I should be flamed for thinking that all those other skills, traits, and build possibilities should be just as viable for those of us who no longer want to use kits, or never wanted to. It would be one thing if kits actually were our primary mechanic but they simply, objectively, are not. And if they are meant to be, then the engineer suffers from the absolute worst implementation of a class mechanic in MMO history, and that is an even worse problem.

VIVorcha.7853:

And three of the skills in medkit are the same.

Even if you counted Drop Bandages as 3 of the same skill, that still leaves 28 unique skills at one’s disposal, more than Elementalists.

Not that I think that the number of skills one has really says anything about anyone, but it is the truth.

Phineas Poe.3018:

VIVorcha.7853:

And three of the skills in medkit are the same.

Even if you counted Drop Bandages as 3 of the same skill, that still leaves 28 unique skills at one’s disposal, more than Elementalists.

Not that I think that the number of skills one has really says anything about anyone, but it is the truth.

Don’t forget that an ele could take four conjure weapons!

Seriously though, not all of this is productive.

I agree that it’s important to remember that the toolbelt is our “mechanic.” However, kits are the most fun part of the profession for most people. Also, I maintain that at its core, the toolbelt is just additional skills, which is also exactly what kits are. Maybe that should not be the case—maybe toolbelt skills should have things that make them feel more defining—but as it is right now, the engineer’s mechanic is having a lot of skills available to use at once. I love that mechanic, but I can understand why people would want something that feels more special.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Also, I maintain that at its core, the toolbelt is just additional skills, which is also exactly what kits are. Maybe that should not be the case—maybe toolbelt skills should have things that make them feel more defining—but as it is right now, the engineer’s mechanic is having a lot of skills available to use at once.

^^^^ This!

The Tools traitline reduces the cooldown on toolbelt skills. You can reduce the cooldown on other skills using traits. Nothing real unique here. You have to take a trait to do something special when using those toolbelt skills (i.e., Static Discharge). You also have to take a trait to do something special when using other types of skills. So yea. There isn’t that much special about toolbelt beyond existing as extra utility skill slots. Bad design?

So… 2 pages of a semantics fight pretty much? Or did I miss something?

VIVorcha.7853:

Elementalist with their four attunements say hi.

And guess what? An Elementalist with four attunements still gets to fully choose their utilities. An engineer with four kits doesn’t get to choose any skills at all.

If an Elemetalist chooses its weapon up to 20 skills are fixed, if you e.g. like the fire skills of a certain weapon set you have to take its water, air and earth skills as well with no ability to choose; that’s why the suggestions that eles should be able to have four weapons sets, one for each attunement, pops on periodically in the Elementalist forums.
The grass is always greener on the other side.

Aberrant.6749:

So… 2 pages of a semantics fight pretty much? Or did I miss something?

I’m not entirely sure you or anyone else has, no. But you’re acting that way. It is just easier to dismiss this and call it a semantics argument rather than address the real issue at hand. Oh well, my own fault for assuming critical thinking from a bunch of lemmings. One or two guys say kits are the primary mechanic of our profession, and whip up a few useful builds with them, and suddenly everyone follows suit, never once stopping to consider what that does or what that says about our profession.

Arkham Creed.7358:

Aberrant.6749:

So… 2 pages of a semantics fight pretty much? Or did I miss something?

I’m not entirely sure you or anyone else has, no. But you’re acting that way. It is just easier to dismiss this and call it a semantics argument rather than address the real issue at hand. Oh well, my own fault for assuming critical thinking from a bunch of lemmings. One or two guys say kits are the primary mechanic of our profession, and whip up a few useful builds with them, and suddenly everyone follows suit, never once stopping to consider what that does or what that says about our profession.

Arkham, let me take a direct tack here with you on your whole premise. You seem to be inordinately frustrated and upset with the profession design of the Engineer. And so you have decided to set yourself on a dogmatic path of lashing out at any line of thought or argument that disagrees with your personal view of the situation. I’m sorry for you, but just because you claim something is a fact does not make it so. And sense the issue at hand from your OP is whether kits themselves are the Core Mechanic… when there is a veritable cornucopia of discussion even within this thread that kits are fundamental to the skill variety of diversity of the profession that even shies away from using the phrase “core mechanic” you still have clung to the semantics argument. I find that a tad lazy, but that’s my personal opinion. Heck, I’ve even admitted to perhaps misspeaking about the terminology in order to assuage the semantics piece and get back to the argument of skill diversity.

However, your consistent attempts at belittling the intellectual capacity and critical thinking skills of your colleagues in this forum is outright deplorable. There is little to no excuse for you making such inane comments about people who have a different view of the profession. I personally find people who sit in an inquisitorial dogma impossible to communicate with.

Therefore, I will just finish my piece to this thread by saying that the actual mechanic aside, it is important to recognize and inform an Engineer playstyle around the use of kits as the venue for achieving a wide variety of skill options. That may not be the playstyle of choice for everybody, but it has been how the class has been developed and worked since the earliest stages of non-Anet participation in this game. To wit, the issue for me is that I would like to see more synergistic options between equipped weaponsets and kits as well as some variability of weapon set traits outside of pure DPS. I recognize that is another thread, but it was the impetus for me to use (admittedly incorrectly) the term of art of kits as the core mechanic.

Deacon.9725:

-snip-

Firstly, I find your comment about “earliest stages of non-Anet participation in this game” to be an odd one considering that Arena Net made the game, and as such as never “not participated” in it in one form or another. Secondly, in interest of getting this back on track, perhaps I should elaborate on my problem further. Consider the following.

Arena Net has neither the manpower nor willpower to address every issue plaguing every profession, and have themselves admitted to that much. By their own admission they primarily focusing on problems in descending order from more important to least, or rather from most widely reaching within the community to least. Now it is a known fact that the engineers are a minority profession, with strong speculation to be the “least played profession.” What this means is that, logically, we already get very little attention by the development team, and our problems no matter how glaring have already been declared low priority by default.

Now consider this; should Arena Net work their way through their backlog of problems enough to actually get some time to spare for us lowly engineers, are they more likely to give us a thorough overview and address major problems, or simply identify and address the issues and skills most widely used and talked about by the community? I say the latter; they are likely to address “popular” skills first, leading to a situation wherein the vocal minority has the most influence over the future development of our profession. And this is where my problem lies.

I feel like major profession-breaking issues like our primary mechanic being so underwhelming it has been replaced in the mind of most players with a common utility skill type, and the horrible effect that has on style-of-play (not to be confused with individual play-style) and profession balance should be deemed high priority and fixed first, even before other issues I myself have been complaining about for months. However so long as the community chooses to sweep this problem under the rug and pretend it is not an issue Arena Net will remain blind to it, addressing issues of lesser overall mechanical impact first and only further unbalancing our profession and invalidating our actual mechanic and all non-kit based play-styles and build options.

In short it is already unlikely that Arena Net will ever bother to fix this issue, and the communities refusal to acknowledge it as a legitimate problem in favor of propagating common misconceptions and confining themselves to pre-established popular builds further reduces those odds. Basically, to be frank, if the engineer is never truly fixed it is your fault. Hence my frustration and lack of patience with the community.

Arkham Creed.7358:

Deacon.9725:

-snip-

Firstly, I find your comment about “earliest stages of non-Anet participation in this game” to be an odd one considering that Arena Net made the game, and as such as never “not participated” in it in one form or another. Secondly, in interest of getting this back on track, perhaps I should elaborate on my problem further. Consider the following.

Arena Net has neither the manpower nor willpower to address every issue plaguing every profession, and have themselves admitted to that much. By their own admission they primarily focusing on problems in descending order from more important to least, or rather from most widely reaching within the community to least. Now it is a known fact that the engineers are a minority profession, with strong speculation to be the “least played profession.” What this means is that, logically, we already get very little attention by the development team, and our problems no matter how glaring have already been declared low priority by default.

Now consider this; should Arena Net work their way through their backlog of problems enough to actually get some time to spare for us lowly engineers, are they more likely to give us a thorough overview and address major problems, or simply identify and address the issues and skills most widely used and talked about by the community? I say the latter; they are likely to address “popular” skills first, leading to a situation wherein the vocal minority has the most influence over the future development of our profession. And this is where my problem lies.

I feel like major profession-breaking issues like our primary mechanic being so underwhelming it has been replaced in the mind of most players with a common utility skill type, and the horrible effect that has on style-of-play (not to be confused with individual play-style) and profession balance should be deemed high priority and fixed first, even before other issues I myself have been complaining about for months. However so long as the community chooses to sweep this problem under the rug and pretend it is not an issue Arena Net will remain blind to it, addressing issues of lesser overall mechanical impact first and only further unbalancing our profession and invalidating our actual mechanic and all non-kit based play-styles and build options.

In short it is already unlikely that Arena Net will ever bother to fix this issue, and the communities refusal to acknowledge it as a legitimate problem in favor of propagating common misconceptions and confining themselves to pre-established popular builds further reduces those odds. Basically, to be frank, if the engineer is never truly fixed it is your fault. Hence my frustration and lack of patience with the community.

So at last we get you to acknowledge the entirety of your issue with this display: You don’t like the way the Engineer plays on a fundamental level.

Well, again, I find it incredibly disingenuous to say that the profession is BROKEN as a fact, and that it’s our fault because we simply don’t agree with you. I think what would be much more honest and correct would be this phrase: "the communities (sic) refusal to acknowledge it as a legitimate problem in favor of playing within the confines of the profession build further reduces those odds of me getting what I want in this profession. Basically, to be frank, if the engineer is never truly the profession I want it to be it is your fault. Hence my frustration and lack of patience with the community. "

There. Now it actually makes sense, and fully exposes the argument as a personal opinion rather than a misguided attempt to make your own ideas dogmatically “the only right way.”

Granted, I think that there is a lot of validity to expressing your opinions on what could shift within the profession to make your playtime more enjoyable. Under that guise, making a strong case for a beefier toolbet skill would be incredibly valid and intriguing in the debate. I would be interested to see you tackle that in an honest opinion setting.

Deacon.9725:

Arkham Creed.7358:

Deacon.9725:

-snip-

Firstly, I find your comment about “earliest stages of non-Anet participation in this game” to be an odd one considering that Arena Net made the game, and as such as never “not participated” in it in one form or another. Secondly, in interest of getting this back on track, perhaps I should elaborate on my problem further. Consider the following.

Arena Net has neither the manpower nor willpower to address every issue plaguing every profession, and have themselves admitted to that much. By their own admission they primarily focusing on problems in descending order from more important to least, or rather from most widely reaching within the community to least. Now it is a known fact that the engineers are a minority profession, with strong speculation to be the “least played profession.” What this means is that, logically, we already get very little attention by the development team, and our problems no matter how glaring have already been declared low priority by default.

Now consider this; should Arena Net work their way through their backlog of problems enough to actually get some time to spare for us lowly engineers, are they more likely to give us a thorough overview and address major problems, or simply identify and address the issues and skills most widely used and talked about by the community? I say the latter; they are likely to address “popular” skills first, leading to a situation wherein the vocal minority has the most influence over the future development of our profession. And this is where my problem lies.

I feel like major profession-breaking issues like our primary mechanic being so underwhelming it has been replaced in the mind of most players with a common utility skill type, and the horrible effect that has on style-of-play (not to be confused with individual play-style) and profession balance should be deemed high priority and fixed first, even before other issues I myself have been complaining about for months. However so long as the community chooses to sweep this problem under the rug and pretend it is not an issue Arena Net will remain blind to it, addressing issues of lesser overall mechanical impact first and only further unbalancing our profession and invalidating our actual mechanic and all non-kit based play-styles and build options.

In short it is already unlikely that Arena Net will ever bother to fix this issue, and the communities refusal to acknowledge it as a legitimate problem in favor of propagating common misconceptions and confining themselves to pre-established popular builds further reduces those odds. Basically, to be frank, if the engineer is never truly fixed it is your fault. Hence my frustration and lack of patience with the community.

So at last we get you to acknowledge the entirety of your issue with this display: You don’t like the way the Engineer plays on a fundamental level.

Well, again, I find it incredibly disingenuous to say that the profession is BROKEN as a fact, and that it’s our fault because we simply don’t agree with you. I think what would be much more honest and correct would be this phrase: "the communities (sic) refusal to acknowledge it as a legitimate problem in favor of playing within the confines of the profession build further reduces those odds of me getting what I want in this profession. Basically, to be frank, if the engineer is never truly the profession I want it to be it is your fault. Hence my frustration and lack of patience with the community. "

There. Now it actually makes sense, and fully exposes the argument as a personal opinion rather than a misguided attempt to make your own ideas dogmatically “the only right way.”

Granted, I think that there is a lot of validity to expressing your opinions on what could shift within the profession to make your playtime more enjoyable. Under that guise, making a strong case for a beefier toolbet skill would be incredibly valid and intriguing in the debate. I would be interested to see you tackle that in an honest opinion setting.

Your entire post is invalidated by my opening post. I didn’t make those rules, and I didn’t create those patterns. Kits are not our primary mechanic and being balanced so heavily around them is a design flaw. The fact that we continue to be so heavily balanced around kits is not because that is their intent, but because -due to popular use- those are the only skills Arena Net has been paying any attention to.

Deacon.9725:

So at last we get you to acknowledge the entirety of your issue with this display: You don’t like the way the Engineer plays on a fundamental level.

I, personally, don’t like the way people play the Engineer. They aren’t play8ing it properly, and that causes the perpetuation of the problems that the Engineer faces.

Well, again, I find it incredibly disingenuous to say that the profession is BROKEN as a fact, and that it’s our fault because we simply don’t agree with you. I think what would be much more honest and correct would be this phrase: "the communities (sic) refusal to acknowledge it as a legitimate problem in favor of playing within the confines of the profession build further reduces those odds of me getting what I want in this profession. Basically, to be frank, if the engineer is never truly the profession I want it to be it is your fault. Hence my frustration and lack of patience with the community. "

That isn’t what he said, at all. What he said is that the class IS Broken and that because people are opting to play it in workaround builds rather than forcing ANet to address the problem is, pretending that the problems don’t exist because they have a cobbled-together solution instead of an actual fix, means that we’re a Kludged class, and we need to be looked at before the whole thing falls apart and takes part of the game with it. You are actually a prime example of players doing it wrong and defending how they do it.

There. Now it actually makes sense, and fully exposes the argument as a personal opinion rather than a misguided attempt to make your own ideas dogmatically “the only right way.”

His ideas are the right way. Kits are utilities that replace weapons. No other class has to suffer through that. Your choice of weapons is immaterial because they aren’t factored in regardless. That means that Engineers have to have superior traits to make up for it, and we don’t. We need buffs to our utilities, and we don’t have them. The class is, in fact, broken, and we need to recognize that fact before we can get ANet to fix it. Turrets are horrible, though they can be made to work if you place them at extreme range to the fighting. Flamethrower is fine, but very few play it right. Bombs and Grenades are situational, at best. We have no 100% uptime utility, weapons, or traits that make us stand out. And worse, we aren’t very solo-friendly, so there’s that, too.

Granted, I think that there is a lot of validity to expressing your opinions on what could shift within the profession to make your playtime more enjoyable. Under that guise, making a strong case for a beefier toolbet skill would be incredibly valid and intriguing in the debate. I would be interested to see you tackle that in an honest opinion setting.

We’re our own worst enemies. So long as we ignore the problems with our class and pretend that everything is fine, ANet will keep ignoring us as well. They’re doing it with the Elementalist, the Charr, the Mesmer, and they’re doing it with Engineers, too.

To be honest, there will not be a significant revamp of all skills and utilities happening in a short period. The fact is that it is a design issue, with 1 utility granting 5 unique skills and a class with only 1 primary weapon set in compensation, resulting in a perpetual need to use kits to retain average control/damage capabilities.
Realistically I will not wait for a huge fix, and just be content with 1 spec that is viable in a unique way and fits us in the meta, as in “We definitely need an Engi in our team”. Sadly it’s come down to kits, and I’m sorry for you.
To quote Blinx who said something somewhere, Viable > Variety, and he would rather have a single competitive spec than multiple not-so-good ones.

Here.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Make-kits-the-engineer-profession-mechanic/first#post2893545

Give some feedback before it is moved or deleted.

Ralkuth.1456:

To be honest, there will not be a significant revamp of all skills and utilities happening in a short period. The fact is that it is a design issue, with 1 utility granting 5 unique skills and a class with only 1 primary weapon set in compensation, resulting in a perpetual need to use kits to retain average control/damage capabilities.
Realistically I will not wait for a huge fix, and just be content with 1 spec that is viable in a unique way and fits us in the meta, as in “We definitely need an Engi in our team”. Sadly it’s come down to kits, and I’m sorry for you.
To quote Blinx who said something somewhere, Viable > Variety, and he would rather have a single competitive spec than multiple not-so-good ones.

Agreed. I sometimes regret that my main is my Engineer and the first one I force leveled to 80 (by doing every zone to 100% I could do and then going back and doing personal stories). I haven’t even done most of the dungeons because he’s so broken at this level that it’s hard to play. I love Flamethrower and it rocks in PvE, but it could be better and he still dies a lot. I’m not having the kind of fun I did when he was younger. The endgame mechanics suck. It makes me a sad Charr.

NevirSayDie.6235:

The toolbelt is nothing more than extra skills. Kits are also just extra skills.

The engineer mechanic is having more skills available at one time than other professions, whether through kits or through other utility skills with their toolbelt counterparts.

The engineer was beautifully designed. Look at how much variety our engagements have compared to any other profession.

This.

Hey, I apparently made this just for you about five months ago. But seriously, this thread is ridiculous. The only thing that the Engineer needs is a hammer. Well, there’s more, but I have a thread about that elsewhere.

Please, when you don’t back your opinion up by describing what you think is the right and proper way to play something, you just look like an elitist fool best filed into the ignore pile. I do improper things with my engineer all the time and am loving it.
/facepalm

Chaba.5410:

Please, when you don’t back your opinion up by describing what you think is the right and proper way to play something, you just look like an elitist fool best filed into the ignore pile. I do improper things with my engineer all the time and am loving it.
/facepalm

When you refuse to accept an established design pattern present in every other instance as a baseline for no other reason than you simply don’t want to, you make yourself look like a delusional fool prone to believing anything that makes them feel better regardless of the reality of the given situation.

Arkham, you remain highly disingenuous by ignoring established design patterns that do not fit your argument, such as the traitline certain traits are placed in. And rather than take time to understand what others are saying, you immediately assume they do not agree with you.

Well you are right that I don’t agree with you about right and proper ways. It’s absurdism to tell people in an online game that they are not playing right and proper because they are not doing something the way you would, as if everyone is supposed to play the same opening move you use in chess. Hacks would be the improper way to play a game.

(looks like jimmies have been rustled)

Chaba.5410:

Arkham, you remain highly disingenuous by ignoring established design patterns that do not fit your argument, such as the traitline certain traits are placed in. And rather than take time to understand what others are saying, you immediately assume they do not agree with you.

Well you are right that I don’t agree with you about right and proper ways. It’s absurdism to tell people in an online game that they are not playing right and proper because they are not doing something the way you would, as if everyone is supposed to play the same opening move you use in chess. Hacks would be the improper way to play a game.

I think you have your argument backwards. I’m not saying kits are not the primary mechanic because I don’t want them to be, I’m saying they’re not because they are objectively not. Everyone else is insisting their delusions are reality simply because of a personal preference. I don’t know how much more clearly to put it; for every other profession in the game the primary mechanic has some manner of exclusive function bound to the F# key. Mesmer’s shatter skills, commanding a ranger’s pets, necro death shroud, warrior burst skills, guardian virtues, so on and so forth. Yet engineer kits are not exclusive to the F# keys; they are slotting into utility slots.

Mesmers don’t have utility shatters.
Guardians don’t have utility virtues.
Warriors don’t have utility burst skills.

While it is true that each kit does in fact have a F# function added to it, you have to look at the primary effect. A ranger technically can command their pets by utility skills through shouts, but shouts are no the core control system for pets; the F# keys are. In the same way we have F# uses for our kits, but the core use of those kits is obviously actually toggling them on and using their skills, and that is a utility function.

This is not a preference I just made up. Kits aren’t primarily used for their toggle effects because I prefer them that way; that is how they are designed. Warrior burst skills aren’t bound to F1 because I prefer it that way; that is how they are designed. And engineer kits are not the primary mechanic of the engineer because you prefer it that way; they weren’t designed that way. If they were we would slot them for their tool belt functions or toggle them on with the F# keys.

I know that “facts” are something that many people struggle with and often confuse with opinions on the internet, but when you actually step away from your preferences and examine the engineer from a logical point of view, using the only point of reference and comparison we have (other professions in this same game) it becomes clear that it is an objective fact that engineer kits are not and were not designed to be used as the primary engineer mechanic.

Preemptive Addendum
And confirmation bias due to the large number of people that agree with you is a straw man argument at best, and a moron’s crutch at worse. There was a time when nearly everyone in the known world knew for a fact that the night sky was a thick blanket thrown over the world by the Gods that simply had a billion tiny holes cut into it.

Arkham,

Please point to a post, any post, where I said kits are the primary profession mechanic. Will not be found as I posted the opposite.

Preemptive addendum? LOLOLOLOLOL man, you continue to assume a certain position is being taken by others.

Who is it not dealing with facts again?

Chaba.5410:

Arkham,

Preemptive addendum? LOLOLOLOLOL man, you continue to assume a certain position is being taken by others.

Who is it not dealing with facts again?

Right…please direct your attention to…

Kirschwasser.3972:

If everybody is getting it but you… you might be the one wrong.

why is arkham so obsessed with ‘F# keys’ and ‘primary mechanic’ and ‘passive trait buffs’? to each of the 3 items – so what if its like that?

while its good to have basic rules like traits and leveling – devs would want as much variation/ orthogonality in their design as much as possible to keep things interesting? even if it means varying from ‘F# key’ and ‘primary mechanic’ and ‘passive trait buffs’ – which isnt a big deal to me to hang on to really.

other than that, i think you are just not used to the class. many people (look at profession distribution) got the hang of it and have a blast, and successful in spvp/ pve/ wvw – at least i know i had good fun.

just saying that engineers doesnt isnt the same as other professions in a specific ways doesnt clearly explains why its a bad design during gameplay.

Ok… what is the point behind arguing over all of semantics? Can some one for the love of Dwayna tell me?

‘Cause I’m still just like…

If you think eng is weak overall then just say that and why instead of all of this stuff about what is the official class mechanic.

Jason.9643:

just saying that engineers doesnt isnt the same as other professions in a specific ways doesnt clearly explains why its a bad design during gameplay.

^ Exactly why I find all of this to just be pointless bickering over semantics thus far.

Aberrant.6749:

Ok… what is the point behind arguing over all of semantics? Can some one for the love of Dwayna tell me?

‘Cause I’m still just like…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFZrzg62Zj0

If you think eng is weak overall then just say that and why instead of all of this stuff about what is the official class mechanic.

Jason.9643:

just saying that engineers doesnt isnt the same as other professions in a specific ways doesnt clearly explains why its a bad design during gameplay.

^ Exactly why I find all of this to just be pointless bickering over semantics thus far.

Firstly, I don’t know who you’re quoting there but that grammar is god awful.

Secondly, this isn’t a semantics argument; people just keep going back to that because they don’t like legitimate criticism of the game/this profession and it is easier to keep bickering about the terms used rather than face the real problem.

As far as that problem I’ll spell it out, again.

Possibility A; the tool belt is what we are supposed to be relying on the most and creating our builds around, not kits, and yet it is so unimpressive and underpowered that most people would rather claim kits are our mechanic. This is an example of horrible design.

Possibility B; kits are our primary mechanic that we the profession is balanced around and that we are supposed to make extensive use of. However being utility skills this forces us to sacrifice both build diversity and build customization to use these skills. Likewise it creates the possibility of players entering combat without their primary mechanic and thus greatly reducing (or “gimping”) their effectiveness, much like a ranger trying to enter combat without their pet (something they are mechanically unable to do). This is an example of horrible implementation.

Either way the engineer has a rather glaring flaw and is objectively broken. But there is no good answer here; no positive way to look at it. Either we are badly designed or badly implemented. Period. Most of the engineer loyalist here don’t want to admit that or talk about it, so they keep going back to the words I used to express this problem instead of the problem itself. Sort of like how thief players don’t like admitting that the initiative mechanic forces them to invest heavily into Trickery, thus limiting possible viable builds, and that steal forcing them into melee range invalidates ranged play-styles.

I don’t fault some one for poor grammar etc… English might not be their native language etc.

I don’t find eng to be weak despite all of these horrible designs/implementations that you see. That leads me to the next logical conclusion that there isn’t an inherant problem with a class that doesn’t have a heavy emphasis on the f-skills as other classes. The other parts of eng (the flexibility of being able to access so many things at any given time) more than make up for that (Sounds like we disagree on that though). Look at thief as well… the steal ability pretty lackluster. But there is more to the class than just that.

Also I don’t invest heavily into trickery on my thief and do just fine in PvE/WvW with it. I’ve also seen arguments that have said that thieves need to heavily invest into the SA line for survival. They both have some points to them but aren’t entirely convincing in either case as they aren’t really forced into doing either and there are viable builds without heavy investment in one or the other (this is from a PvE/WvW POV on thief as I don’t play him in s/tPvP).

I am hardly a loyalist. I’m an admitted alt-a-holic.

If I’m misinterpreting anything you wrote feel free to clarify and I’ll read it in the AM.

Right now I am…

Arkham Creed.7358:

Either way the engineer has a rather glaring flaw and is objectively broken.

And this is why people say this is a “semantics” issue.

Contextually, you’re placing emphasis on primary profession mechanics somehow being the overarching abilities for classes that define the way in which they are balanced. When their primary mechanics are strong, the class is in a good place. When their primary mechanics are weak, and they balance classes based on their utility skills instead, then the class is—to you—in a bad place.

None of us “loyalists” have any difficulty understanding your argument. We just disagree with you on the basis that (1) there’s nothing wrong with our toolbelt skills and (2) there’s nothing wrong with utility skills being more important than them. You established this precedent that primary profession mechanics should be the strongest a profession has, but this is not the case for many classes.

Burst skills are completely pointless in PvE, but that doesn’t stop Warriors from being one of the most effective classes for DPS and party-wide support, making them etched in stone in the fractal/dungeon meta. They pretty much don’t use their Burst skills at all, turning their Adrenaline into a power meter of sorts, increasing their damage based off traits. To burn their Adrenaline on Burst skills is actually a DPS loss, making them weaker.

“the tool belt is what we are supposed to be … creating our builds around”

That’s absurd. Absurd in context of other classes. Absurd in context of the engineer. Name some builds from other classes that do that. I can only think of one of the engineer: SD rifle burst build, and consider it an abuse of the profession mechanic, a creative way that people have come up with to work around balance issues of other skills, not something we were “supposed to” be doing.

Arkham Creed.7358:

Possibility A; the tool belt is what we are supposed to be relying on the most and creating our builds around, not kits, and yet it is so unimpressive and underpowered that most people would rather claim kits are our mechanic. This is an example of horrible design.

You keep focusing on the semantics here of mechanic, when I’ve even stated repeatedly that perhaps I misspoke. Granted, when looking over posts, it was clear that the phrase was “A” core mechanic. There can be more than 1 core mechanic of a profession. Either way, you seem to be hung up on your opinion (not objective fact of “horrible design,” which by definition is subjective and not objective) that toolbelt skills are underpowered. Why not make the case to beef them up rather than making the logically flawed case that the profession is broken?

Arkham Creed.7358:

Possibility B; kits are our primary mechanic that we (sic) the profession is balanced around and that we are supposed to make extensive use of. <snip> This is an example of horrible implementation.

Starting from the bottom… this is not horrible implementation qua implementation. You simply don’t like it because for some reason, you feel like it constrains your ability to have build diversity. Given the context of all of our other utility skills, I think there is a qualitative case that using a single kit and 2 other utilities (gadgets, elixirs, turrets) provides the potential for diversity of builds. This does not make the profession broken by a case of “horrible implementation.” Again, it makes it a case of an implementation which you seem to not want.

I’m not quite sure what you actually want – it seems like you want a profession to operate more closely like others in terms of an easy sense of around what mechanic to form a build. Engineers just are a more complex profession than that. The thing is… you can build around gadgets, elixirs, kits, turrets, main weapon. What I think you try to hit and somewhat miss is the idea that min-maxing of builds seems to favor kits at the moment. Sadly, you seem to go back to the same well of confirmation bias. Sense you brought up the concept of cognitive biases as a way of discounting opposing views or disagreement feedback, I think Shakespeare had it best when he wrote of Ophelia, “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”

Which leads us directly to this quote:

Either way the engineer has a rather glaring flaw and is objectively broken. <snip>

And here is where you run off the rails in terms of logical consistency. It’s just poor debate tactics to say that the only 2 options you present are the only options available, you state an opinion as objective fact (which doesn’t make it any more correct the more you repeat the answer), and then re-apply the confirmation bias above to say the the profession is objectively broken.

Rather, you might get more traction if you would say something along the lines of “I find that the only way to currently maximize our skill efficiency and diversity is to rely on kits to the exclusion of other utilities. Since our toolbelts seem to be reflective of whatever utility build-out we have, I would like to see more options in builds that incorporate a similar impact on playstyle from utility skills outside of kits. Whether this means to beef up the toolbelt functions of non-kit utilities or to provide elixirs as skillbar sets ala kits, or to make gadgets on a severely minimal cooldown so as to function more like 1-5 skills, that would be a nice option for me to get to play the Engineer as something other than just kits.”

But railing about objective brokenness is disingenuous for the sole reason of the clear fact that Engineers are not, by definition, broken. Many people seem to be able to play them effectively and well. Just because you can’t play them the way you want to play them as effectively as others in a different playstyle doesn’t make the profession broken.

I really enjoy a good BLT. You know, bacon, lettuce and tomato. Personally I prefer a nice wheat bread, lightly toasted of course, and served with some chips.

The main thing in the BLT is the bacon. The lettuce and tomato are just secondary really, you can still have a fine sandwich without them.

…but then it’s not a $&#@ing BLT!

It is an issue because they’ve balanced the class on the assumption that a kit will always be used – as it is implied in the december patch notes i’ve posted before.
They’re treated like a primary profession mechanic – as is, something any engineer will always have – even if they aren’t one.

Because engineer always has the potential to slot a kit and when someone finds a trick with kits, like the Runes of Tormenting, how could they not balance that? Kits are part of the class, whatever you want to call them. The kit as a specific class of engineer skills, like shouts or signets or turrets or elixirs or phantasms or illusions or consecrations, etc., is just following a design pattern set out by the devs. Balance requires consideration of all things.

This is like saying they should nerf warriors’ healing skills because they have the potential of healing themselves with shouts. Same with any other “potential” thing.
You don’t nerf something that’s always there – main weapons in our case, according to those release notes – because of something optional – kits.
If they have a problem with kits, they should balance kits.
Else they’re basically forcing their use, since we’ve already got a drawback because of them.