Guild Wars 2

Reasoning:
It is no secret on the engineer forums that I dislike (to put it mildly) the way our profession mechanic, the tool belt, has been implemented into the game, and I take issue with such a high percentage of the community disregarding this in order to pretend that kits are our primary mechanic simply because we’re unviable without them, and ignoring how this means we mush sacrifice utility slots to maintain that viability. However that is an argument I can’t win no matter how much facts and logic are on my side, so rather than continue to bang my head against a wall pointlessly I’ve instead desided to pled for Arena Net to do what they apparently wanted to do in the first place; make it so kits actually are our profession mechanic.

I’m sure Arena Net has some old design documents laying around about how they intended to do that, but I figured I would throw my idea out here for everyone’s consideration. So without further delay I present my vision for kits as the engineer profession mechanic in three –not so- simple steps.

Step 1; destroy the Tool Belt
Seriously, get rid of it. Just drop the whole thing. Gone. Bye-bye. Ctrl + Delete. Goodbye.

Some tool belt skills are worth saving however, so for these one of three things can be done depending on how valuable the skill is.

1; Fold the skill into its parent utility skill. Example: Elixir mist. Instead of drinking elixirs, engineers now toss them like ninja smoke bombs at their feet, causing the on-use effect to themselves and the on-toss effect to surrounding allies.

2; Make them standalone skills. Example: Mine Field. The exact same as the Mine Field tool belt, only a standalone skill, perhaps replacing Throw Mine.

3; Make them chain skills. Example: Place Turret > Overload Turret > Detonate Turret.

Step 2; place kits on the F-bar

I feel that two F# slots would be fine, but I can see some players wanting to push it as far as four. If three or four is made available I would recommend making the first slot, F1, a secondary healing slot that will accept only healing/support based kits. These new slots, depending on how many a players gets at max level, would unlock gradually as the player levels up in the same way as elementalist attunements. Kits themselves would be arranged into tiers and perhaps types, with the Med Kit and Elixir Gun both being set as healing kits, and exclusively used for F1 if the healing slot idea is used. Like the slots themselves kits unlock as the player gains levels, with low tier kits unlock first and high tier kits unlocking at latter levels. Obviously players have the freedom to –when out of combat- choose what kits they have slotted in, exactly as they work as utility skills. Finally the act of kit-swapping is to be given a fifteen second cool down to bring them in line with elementalist attunements.

Step 3; traits
The engineer fifth trait line, tools, is to be first remained Satchel. The newly named Satchel line is largely unchanged in terms of its passive effects, with the only notable differences being that it now reduces Kit swapping cooldowns rather than the now non-existent Tool Belt. Likewise the minor traits Adrenaline Pump (using Tool Belt skills recharges 10% of endurance) and Inertial Converter (Tool Belt skills recharge at 25% health) and Enduring Damage now function for kit swapping instead of Tool Belt skills.

Finally certain major traits within the line will need to be moved around a bit, and some rebalanced. For example the Tools trait Scope (Gain 10% critical hit chance against targets further than 600 units away) and the Firearms trait Juggernaut (You gain 200 toughness while wielding a flamethrower. In addition, gain might for 15 seconds every 3 seconds, as long as you remain in this weapon kit) would simply trade places, as both are currently Master level major traits of their respective lines. The concept here is to fold most, if not all, kit based traits into the new Satchel line, while at the same time strengthening other build aspects by making it easier to obtain useful traits. For example a rifle based engineer focusing on a ‘zerker style of direct damage would want to downplay kits in favor of stacking power and crit damage, so having more ready access to Scope would be of tremendous benefit to them.

Other traits would be moved within the Satchel line and have their functions reworked. A prime example here would be the popular trait Kit Refinement (Equipping a kit creates an attack or a spell), as I see this trait being bumped from Adept all the way up to Grandmaster, with the “attack or spell” it triggers being the old Tool Belt functions of kits. For example using Med Kit would heal the player with the equivalent effect of a self-heal, while activating the Elixir Gun would vent a Healing Mist that give regeneration to nearby allies and breaks stun. Activating the Flamethrower would grant automatic burning on one’s next few attacks, the Bomb Kit would trigger a powerful explosion with launch at the players location just like the old Big Ol’ Bomb, and so on.

Conclusion
Primarily this change would justify our current profession balance and legitimize the reason why engineers cannot currently use weapon swapping. However I feel that these changes, such as adding endurance gain when toggling kits and triggering kit based Tool Belt skills when kits are activated, would greatly improve the overall power of kits, as well as strengthening non-kit centric builds by freeing up our utility skill slots and providing easier access to useful and improved traits.

Careful what you wish for, they might make them as clunky as Attunements if that happens lol.

Or ANet can implement traits similar to Juggernaut for all kits, making it worthwhile to stay in a single kit for longer then the seconds it takes to get off all the DPS related ones.

basically you want to make engis as innefective as eles? Have them nerfed down to ele’s point? Because basically thats what will happen if thats what they do.

Believe me, you do NOT want to be on ele’s bad situation….

Absolutely not. I like the tool belt – it’s interesting. It’s the only profession mechanic in the game that is fully customizable.

Instead, they should improve tool belt skills and make non-kit utilities and main weapons actually relevant – because frankly, kits are too important.

hardly. buff elixirs and gadgets to actually do something when we use them and buff all toolbelt skills, they are weak and useless for the most part. If it weren’t for HGH and condi removal no one would bother with elixirs at all! And please fixit so that engis no longer have to stack enormous amounts of might just to keep up with everyone else on the damage meter! Seriously, it’s tiresome.

tigirius.9014:

hardly. buff elixirs and gadgets to actually do something when we use them and buff all toolbelt skills, they are weak and useless for the most part. If it weren’t for HGH and condi removal no one would bother with elixirs at all! And please fixit so that engis no longer have to stack enormous amounts of might just to keep up with everyone else on the damage meter! Seriously, it’s tiresome.

You and I agree, but since Arena Net has proven themselves to have zero interest in that….see the opening post.

TBH I have not seen this supposed “high percentage” on the sub-forum complaining about engineer being non-viable without kits. It’s a vocal minority doing that.

Bad idea, please just let it go already…..

tigirius.9014:

hardly. buff elixirs and gadgets to actually do something when we use them and buff all toolbelt skills, they are weak and useless for the most part. If it weren’t for HGH and condi removal no one would bother with elixirs at all! And please fixit so that engis no longer have to stack enormous amounts of might just to keep up with everyone else on the damage meter! Seriously, it’s tiresome.

This wouldn’t matter in the slightest. No matter how much they buff non-kit skills engineers will still lack efficient and meaningful build paths so long as they receive a drawback over their entire class for the potential use of five utility skills out of twenty.

Granted I don’t think changing the engineer in to a reskin of the elementalist is going to help either.

• They need to remove that drawback or give utility and power that justifies it.
  Remove the drawback: Give engineers a utility holster, the ability to equip a kit which they may swap to as other classes swap to a secondary weapon. You could also just give them a weapon swap, but with only three possible weapon combos that’d be reaaaaally boring.
  Justify the Drawback: All non-kit utility and healing skills are now modular. They operate as one skill before their toolbelt skill has been used, and another after it has been used and is recharging. Or the reverse could be used as well, being modular toolbelt skills for all non-kit utility and healing skills.

Done, the majority of the classes builds aren’t chop-blocked by a last-minute drawback copy-pasted from a completely mechanically unrelated class.

(PS: You haven’t even seen ‘tiresome boon stacking’ until you’ve tried to play an elementalist in PvP.)

Chaba.5410:

TBH I have not seen this supposed “high percentage” on the sub-forum complaining about engineer being non-viable without kits. It’s a vocal minority doing that.

No its not, players have been screaming to get Engineer fixed since the game opened and its mostly fallen on deaf ears, many gave up, left, or switched classes.

Engineer isn’t working and you are the minority, you just wont see it..

At least the OP is trying to get stuff fixed not dealing with a unbalanced broken class like many others do.

The Tool Belt is my favorite part about the Engineer. I actually hate the Kits. Why would I get rid of my guns and (in my opinion) waste a utility slot when I could have a more interesting gadget or some such. I generally roll a Static Discharge build on my engineer and rarely switch over to a flamethrower (the only kit I like to use). Destroying the tool belt would ruin the one thing I like most about the class. I know the Engineer has problems but there is a much better way to fix it than getting rid of the most interesting profession mechanic.

Your idea also sounds very close to elementalists. Why would you want that? I don’t play an ele because I dislike switching between attunements. People enjoying playing that profession and that is fine. I enjoy playing an engineer because of the tool belt not the kits. I don’t really care if a build I make isn’t viable as long as I like it. A class based all around kits does not interest me at all.

I like it the way it is.

It is fine the way it is. And this thread belongs in the suggestions forum.

Eles are already forced into 30 arcana to make better use of their class mechanic, do you really want the same thing for engineers ? and turning kit refinement into an evasive arcana ? :/

and besides, what would be the benefit or even the point of these changes ?

google.3709:

Eles are already forced into 30 arcana to make better use of their class mechanic, do you really want the same thing for engineers ? and turning kit refinement into an evasive arcana ? :/

Still better than our current mechanic of getting a few extra, yet universally considered ultra weak/underpowered utility skills that we have no control over selecting.

google.3709:

and besides, what would be the benefit or even the point of these changes ?

Review time….

Arkham Creed.7358:

Conclusion
Primarily this change would justify our current profession balance and legitimize the reason why engineers cannot currently use weapon swapping. However I feel that these changes, such as adding endurance gain when toggling kits and triggering kit based Tool Belt skills when kits are activated, would greatly improve the overall power of kits, as well as strengthening non-kit centric builds by freeing up our utility skill slots and providing easier access to useful and improved traits.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; I don’t like not being allowed to use weapon swapping because I might slot a kit. As long as kits are an optional part of our profession being denied weapon swapping is unjustifiable. Likewise if kits are a necessary part of the profession than being forced to sacrifice our utility slots to use them is likewise unjustifiable.

OP’s issue is not really with kits, but with the lack of weapon swapping, as I observed in the other thread. Lot of kitten arguing over the wrong thing.

Chaba.5410:

OP’s issue is not really with kits, but with the lack of weapon swapping, as I observed in the other thread. Lot of kitten arguing over the wrong thing.

So this could really all be solved by tweaking our gadgets and such to make them better, giving us a couple more weapons (Hammer and Mace?) as well as weapon swapping? That sounds much more preferable than making kits our profession mechanic.

tigirius.9014:

hardly. buff elixirs and gadgets to actually do something when we use them and buff all toolbelt skills, they are weak and useless for the most part. If it weren’t for HGH and condi removal no one would bother with elixirs at all! And please fixit so that engis no longer have to stack enormous amounts of might just to keep up with everyone else on the damage meter! Seriously, it’s tiresome.

if it weren’t for monk’s focus and meditation mastery, no one would bother with meditations at all!

your argument is so nonsensical. obviously if you put something in the utility slot you trait for it. our toolbelt skills are great and our damage is fine. everything about the engineer is fine godkitten it. find something else to complain about.

Arkham Creed.7358:

Reasoning:
It is no secret on the engineer forums that I dislike (to put it mildly) the way our profession mechanic, the tool belt, has been implemented into the game, and I take issue with such a high percentage of the community disregarding this in order to pretend that kits are our primary mechanic simply because we’re unviable without them, and ignoring how this means we mush sacrifice utility slots to maintain that viability. However that is an argument I can’t win no matter how much facts and logic are on my side, so rather than continue to bang my head against a wall pointlessly I’ve instead desided to pled for Arena Net to do what they apparently wanted to do in the first place; make it so kits actually are our profession mechanic.

I’m not sure what the end goal of all the suggestions is. Would it make us more powerful? (engineers are already at a very good spot in terms of balance in PvE, WvW, and PvP). Would it make us more fun? (engineers are already crazy fun to play.) More accessible? (It would take away all of our easy builds).

Why not make a more elegant solution that beefs up other utility lines, rather than ask for a complete redesign of class mechanics? If the issue is skill diversity (which seems to be one of the OPs original frustrations given the initial attempts at math comparisons to Elementalists’ attunement skills, and the idea that we are forced into kits for “non-gimping”), then make other utilities have a larger skill diversity.

I don’t know many Engineers who run a single utility line exclusively exactly because of the desire for more skill diversity. Maybe Turrets could have a functionality on their F# slot that puts you into the /use mode ala Trebs/Catapults/Mortars/etc so you can get more skill diversity out of a turret build as well? It would imply that a new Master/Grandmaster trait in Inventions would be to remote-control turrets from the toolbelt, but that might solve some of the OP frustration of feeling like kits are the only way to maximize the diversity of 1-5 skill options.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Absolutely not. I like the tool belt – it’s interesting. It’s the only profession mechanic in the game that is fully customizable.

Instead, they should improve tool belt skills and make non-kit utilities and main weapons actually relevant – because frankly, kits are too important.

“Customizable” as in you can choose your tool belt skills. They are linked to what your utilities are and can’t be swapped. Your utilities define your tool belt so if you want a specific skill you are forced into taking the corresponding skill. Granted, if I could choose the tool belt skills, there would be a lot more build combos that people could pull off.

ellesee.8297:

if it weren’t for monk’s focus and meditation mastery, no one would bother with meditations at all!

your argument is so nonsensical. obviously if you put something in the utility slot you trait for it. our toolbelt skills are great and our damage is fine. everything about the engineer is fine godkitten it. find something else to complain about.

The damage output is not fine and not everything is fine on the engineer. Don’t have tunnel vision that since your build is fine everyone else’s must be as well. Shall I list off the 20 some odd bugs/issues with turrets that have been present for over a year and we are getting one of those fixed (hopefully) next patch.
One, just one after a year of asking for changes to them.
ONE
Let that sink in there for a bit

As for damage, not going to throw out numbers since I have things to do, here’s a quick example.
Of the five kits, I shall leave out grenade since it isn’t the best physical damage kit now since the nerfs to it months ago.
Anyhow toolkit and bomb kit and flamethrower(to a lesser extent) could be considered our melee kits. Why is it that toolkit and flamethrower have less physical damage compared to our equipped rifle when every other class gets a damage boost for using melee over ranged combat. The only kit that grants that boost is bomb kit for one of its 5 skills and is really easy to avoid.

There’s a reason why the only viable builds for engineer are condition based and not physical based. They’re the only form of damage that we have that isn’t severely imbalanced amongst our weapons since condition damages are set for all classes and weapons.

Now back to the topic on hand, the complaint that the OP is making which I don’t think has reached most people is this.

If the class was designed to swap between kits like an elementalist swaps attunements, then the class should have kits as a profession mechanic and not as a utility where it is now.
The developers have even stated that:
“They can use different kits based on the situation, but this extreme versatility comes at a cost in damage on their main hand weapons.”

They expected us to swap between kits with this class, but I don’t feel the benefit of taking 3 kits because what good does it do when I only use certain parts of the kits and never touch it again. As I stated above, why take toolkit when rifle does more damage over the course of the fight. I take it for the pull/block and never touch it again until one of those is up again. I would rather have that generic kit on the tool belt than have toss wrench which is very lackluster in terms of effect on a battlefield.

Basically, if kits were meant to be a part of EVERY engineer build. Make it so that every engineer has them with EVERY build. They can CHOOSE to take it out at ANY time. This will validate what they said back in December with classes.
If they don’t want to do this and have it be a rehash of the elementalist that’s fine, but then the tool belts skills should have more options to us. It doesn’t feel very impressive that I have this one skill that I never use, but I have to have it because my build requires its counterpart.

Yoshifxe.8346:

If the class was designed to swap between kits like an elementalist swaps attunements, then the class should have kits as a profession mechanic and not as a utility where it is now.
The developers have even stated that:
“They can use different kits based on the situation, but this extreme versatility comes at a cost in damage on their main hand weapons.”

They expected us to swap between kits with this class, but I don’t feel the benefit of taking 3 kits because what good does it do when I only use certain parts of the kits and never touch it again.

a) Engineers are not Elementalists and I don’t see a rational inference that we were meant to be such.
b) We have access to multiple kits that we can slot on the fly. We don’t have to keep all of them slotted at the same time. I don’t think the dev quote used above implies that. I think it implies that there are options for Engineers to use multiple kits based on different scenarios. For example, I normally do not run with grenades, but I can switch out one of my utilities or current kit for grenades when I need to be in a more distance AOE role rather than a field-supplier. That doesn’t mean that I have to run with grenades AND 2 other kits all the time.
c (or b-2)) Part of the inherent playstyle (which I don’t find broken or horribly designed, but rather complex and cognitive) is situational awareness and using a host of utility skills as the situation demands. Now, if we had to go back to a trainer to reset our utility skills each time we wanted to switch out, that would be a severe detriment to the on-the-fly versatility inherent in the utility skills, including kits.

Yoshifxe.8346:

If the class was designed to swap between kits like an elementalist swaps attunements, then the class should have kits as a profession mechanic and not as a utility where it is now.

Basically, if kits were meant to be a part of EVERY engineer build. Make it so that every engineer has them with EVERY build. They can CHOOSE to take it out at ANY time. This will validate what they said back in December with classes.
If they don’t want to do this and have it be a rehash of the elementalist that’s fine, but then the tool belts skills should have more options to us. It doesn’t feel very impressive that I have this one skill that I never use, but I have to have it because my build requires its counterpart.

Oh thank God….someone actually gets it….

Deacon.9725:

a) Engineers are not Elementalists and I don’t see a rational inference that we were meant to be such.
b) We have access to multiple kits that we can slot on the fly. We don’t have to keep all of them slotted at the same time. I don’t think the dev quote used above implies that. I think it implies that there are options for Engineers to use multiple kits based on different scenarios. For example, I normally do not run with grenades, but I can switch out one of my utilities or current kit for grenades when I need to be in a more distance AOE role rather than a field-supplier. That doesn’t mean that I have to run with grenades AND 2 other kits all the time.
c (or b-2)) Part of the inherent playstyle (which I don’t find broken or horribly designed, but rather complex and cognitive) is situational awareness and using a host of utility skills as the situation demands. Now, if we had to go back to a trainer to reset our utility skills each time we wanted to switch out, that would be a severe detriment to the on-the-fly versatility inherent in the utility skills, including kits.

(if this goes on to be a discussion I should point out that I bear no ill will to anyone just I like discussions)

a)Considering that we are supposed to be versatile(just like the ele), have no weapon swapping for this (just like the ele), the kits are similar to the attunements (FT>Fire: Med kit/EG>Water), and as a personal opinion; the tool belt to me is an unimaginative mechanic that may have been something else before, but they removed it because it was too similar to an already designed class and they were worried that they would be heckled for it. You can’t deny that a lot of those tool belt skills are lackluster to say the least. To my knowledge engineer was the last designed profession.

b)You can’t swap kits for other kits during combat and I probably should have made this clearer. When you engage in combat, you can’t change. In PvE this is not a problem that I have because all fights are the same in PvE and I can change accordingly before the fight. In PvP, you are set in stone for your build. For example, if I am roaming in WvW and I come across say a minion master necromancer I would rather have bombs/FT than tool kit or rifle. Its the more optimal choice in that scenario. If I get combat locked before I can change to that I am stuck with what I have, I CAN’T change it at that point. You don’t know what the enemy is packing unless you get written notice. That every tool for every situation only comes into effect when you know what’s coming.

c)Before I go on this bit, if they come out with load outs this issue is invalidated. For blatant example, grenadier is better for a grenade build for very obvious reasons. In WvW I can’t go get my grenade build if I am holding a tower/keep unless I port back to spawn, take the 3 minutes or so to walk to the point I need to go back to the defense, and attempt to get into the objective before its taken. Basically there’s not enough time to swap your build to the more optimal when you need it.

Before someone makes a point that engi can’t be this counter everything guy. I agree with that notion it shouldn’t, but I would rather put up a fight rather than just flail around and fight a hopelessly lost battle.

And because the mods like to move, delete, and hide my threads I give you this link.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Tool-Belt-Freedom-1/first#post2899715

digiowl.9620:

Or ANet can implement traits similar to Juggernaut for all kits, making it worthwhile to stay in a single kit for longer then the seconds it takes to get off all the DPS related ones.

This.

I think there should be a Trait that does it for ALL Kits.

Flamethrower = Toughness
Grenades = Power
Bombs = Condition Damage
Elixir Gun = Healing Power
Toolkit = Precision

Have it so that all kits grant the same Might that Flamethrower has, this would need a slight change – maybe make it so that each time you kit swap the Might is removed and needs to be restacked? Make another trait that allows the Kit buff to remain for say 5 seconds.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

digiowl.9620:

Or ANet can implement traits similar to Juggernaut for all kits, making it worthwhile to stay in a single kit for longer then the seconds it takes to get off all the DPS related ones.

This.

I think there should be a Trait that does it for ALL Kits.

Flamethrower = Toughness
Grenades = Power
Bombs = Condition Damage
Elixir Gun = Healing Power
Toolkit = Precision

Have it so that all kits grant the same Might that Flamethrower has, this would need a slight change – maybe make it so that each time you kit swap the Might is removed and needs to be restacked? Make another trait that allows the Kit buff to remain for say 5 seconds.

No to the last one, as that brings us right back to kit spinning to keep as many of them as possible going.

Yoshifxe.8346:

The damage output is not fine

pve:
https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/92649/Bomb.jpg
pvp:
well if you’re complaining about pvp engineer damage then here’s the obligatory l2p. l2p. most top tournament teams run an engineer so your tears are wasted.

Yoshifxe.8346:

Anyhow toolkit and bomb kit and flamethrower(to a lesser extent) could be considered our melee kits. Why is it that toolkit and flamethrower have less physical damage compared to our equipped rifle when every other class gets a damage boost for using melee over ranged combat. The only kit that grants that boost is bomb kit for one of its 5 skills and is really easy to avoid.

tool kit and flamethrower are utilities. some utilities are offensive and some are defensive. i don’t go on the necro forums and whine about why spectral armor doesn’t do 5000 damage. furthermore these kits have no cooldown and you have FIVE abilities PLUS a toolbelt ability instead of one.

Yoshifxe.8346:

There’s a reason why the only viable builds for engineer are condition based and not physical based. They’re the only form of damage that we have that isn’t severely imbalanced amongst our weapons since condition damages are set for all classes and weapons.

i could link you tons of engi power builds. lots of top ranked engis use power builds. however there will always be one or two builds that work the best. why? because that’s how games like these play out. if you don’t like it then i don’t know. shed more tears i guess.

Yoshifxe.8346:

As I stated above, why take toolkit when rifle does more damage over the course of the fight. I take it for the pull/block and never touch it again until one of those is up again.

so what you’re saying is you use one utility slot for multiple abilities. interesting! but apparently that is’nt good enough for you! you want a beefed up toolkit so after i do my 15k SD burst that includes toolkit, i can swap back to it because it has no cd and keep up my burst damage! woooo!

moronic. kits are fine. toolbelt is fine.

Disagree completely. Took me a lot of time (and leveling), to get over my engineer frustrations, but guess what after a year and many times giving up on lvling him: It’s my FAVORITE of all profession (i got all of them lvl 80). What you are proposing would destroy the stuff i like about engineer. So OP, no thanks.

I understand your view, but this is not the solution. All i ask to Anet is slight boosts to pistol skill, rifle is ok (not ‘good’, so could use slight boosts too). And toolbelt skills, well some are nice, others could use a boost. But overall i love them too.

If you want kits to become profession mechanic, then go ele. Soon enough you’ll realize the problems. There’s no free cake in this came, if it might be even remotely op in pvp, they will either nerf it heavely to implement it in pvp, or just won’t do it. I prefer not doing it, cause i think engineers are pretty ok in every part of game. Of course tweaks are necessary but that counts for all professions in the game. (and having played all of them, engineer really isn’t in such a bad spot). Only dps might be problem when pure mathematic comparison to other profession, but there’s much more to the game and balance then ‘highest possible dps’.

I dislike kits, personally I dont see kits as being engineer in theme. most should be on a solider class, medkit, grenades and bombs, The only one that fits on an engineer is the toolkit and maybe the flamethrower but I’m really iffy about it.
There not as out of place as magic potions mind you, seeing as the engineer class is kinda based off Charr tech and they are pretty militarily minded.

If anything should take place of the toolbet as our class mechanic it would be turrets.
But as it stands the toolbelt is vital for using turrets, without the ability to self destruct it would hurt the deploy turret trait quite a bit and cause even more problems with mobility.

The huge problem with our class is that toolbelt skills aren’t as powerful as a normal utility skill.

They need to have lower cooldown.

the whole point of toolbelt skills is that they’re not as powerful as a utility.

not as powerful =/= weak and useless.

I don’t even have anything to add to the debate here that hasn’t been added already, but there’s one thing I find amusing/interesting from a ‘Wow, the staff on these boards are weird’ standpoint:

They moved this thread to the Engineer boards from…I think this was in Living Story, and then moved a ‘Make Toolbelt skills selectable’ thread to the Suggestion boards.
They deleted a thread talking about the Engineer from the GW2 Discussion boards, and then moved it to here when the deletion was appealed.

I know this is off-topic, but is anybody else starting to wonder about the staff?

Anymras.5729:

I don’t even have anything to add to the debate here that hasn’t been added already, but there’s one thing I find amusing/interesting from a ‘Wow, the staff on these boards are weird’ standpoint:

They moved this thread to the Engineer boards from…I think this was in Living Story, and then moved a ‘Make Toolbelt skills selectable’ thread to the Suggestion boards.
They deleted a thread talking about the Engineer from the GW2 Discussion boards, and then moved it to here when the deletion was appealed.

I know this is off-topic, but is anybody else starting to wonder about the staff?

You mean this staff? [img]http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/308/125/1ee.jpg[/img]

Arkham Creed.7358:

Anymras.5729:

I don’t even have anything to add to the debate here that hasn’t been added already, but there’s one thing I find amusing/interesting from a ‘Wow, the staff on these boards are weird’ standpoint:

They moved this thread to the Engineer boards from…I think this was in Living Story, and then moved a ‘Make Toolbelt skills selectable’ thread to the Suggestion boards.
They deleted a thread talking about the Engineer from the GW2 Discussion boards, and then moved it to here when the deletion was appealed.

I know this is off-topic, but is anybody else starting to wonder about the staff?

You mean this staff? [img]http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/308/125/1ee.jpg[/img]

I wish I could say I would be surprised if that were an actual photograph.

I don’t get why are you so obsessed about changing this profession (you waste a lot of efforts and don’t seem to realize there are lots of people who actually like the engineer as is)… if you don’t like it, pick another one which fits you better.. if there are no other prof you like in gw2, well.. there are plenty of games out there.

Deacon.9725:

Now, if we had to go back to a trainer to reset our utility skills each time we wanted to switch out, that would be a severe detriment to the on-the-fly versatility inherent in the utility skills, including kits.

Basically you have to go to a trainer to make many utility skills worth the slot, probably even more than on other classes.

And what keeps other classes from changing their utilities on the fly? And what keeps them from changing their weapons on the field, which gives them a lot of new options just like our kits?

I still wouldn´t want a complete revamp as suggested in the OP, that bares to much danger. But Anet probably wouldn´t take that much effort for engineers anyways.

And ellesee, bring your s/tpvp-arguments over to that other minority-forum (every second post from this guy – pure troll-posts included – makes me look for the down-vote button)

You know, you effectively describe the Elementalist class mechanic. So that’s quite unlikely to happen.

Lots of people saying that the toolbelt skills are weak. A few months back i’d totally agree but this argument is old. They buffed a lot of the toolbelt skills and i don’t think they are weak at all. Name 3 toolbelt skills that are really weak and not worth slotting.

XelNigma.6315:

I dislike kits, personally I dont see kits as being engineer in theme. most should be on a solider class

Early on the engineer was the third “soldier” procession, alongside warrior and guardian. But at some point we were demoted to adventurer.

In any case, the GW2 engineer is one part steampunk, one part alchemist, and one part military engineer.

RedCobra.7693:

no just no, i love the current setup, why is it people dont like somthing so they have to force it on others, its facism and there was a particular german dictator that was fond of it, what it is now gives you the choice and i like choice, engineer is very versatile second only to the mesmer

Please make it stop, it hurts too much…

On topic:

I do agree that the toolbelt mechanic is lacking, but i think it is mostly because half of the skills you get from the utility slots are pretty much useless.

RedCobra.7693:

no just no, i love the current setup, why is it people dont like somthing so they have to force it on others, its facism and there was a particular german dictator that was fond of it, what it is now gives you the choice and i like choice, engineer is very versatile second only to the mesmer

Godwin’s Law! /cry

Seems like you still can’t get enough of your last thread. I, for one, love the engineer the way it is. Very versatile and could adapt to almost any situation.

Your inability to pull it off on engineer is not our problem. Period.

Arkham Creed.7358:

google.3709:

Eles are already forced into 30 arcana to make better use of their class mechanic, do you really want the same thing for engineers ? and turning kit refinement into an evasive arcana ? :/

Still better than our current mechanic of getting a few extra, yet universally considered ultra weak/underpowered utility skills that we have no control over selecting.

google.3709:

and besides, what would be the benefit or even the point of these changes ?

Review time….

Arkham Creed.7358:

Conclusion
Primarily this change would justify our current profession balance and legitimize the reason why engineers cannot currently use weapon swapping. However I feel that these changes, such as adding endurance gain when toggling kits and triggering kit based Tool Belt skills when kits are activated, would greatly improve the overall power of kits, as well as strengthening non-kit centric builds by freeing up our utility skill slots and providing easier access to useful and improved traits.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; I don’t like not being allowed to use weapon swapping because I might slot a kit. As long as kits are an optional part of our profession being denied weapon swapping is unjustifiable. Likewise if kits are a necessary part of the profession than being forced to sacrifice our utility slots to use them is likewise unjustifiable.

i guess you have forgotten how strong those “few skills” are (Lots of these are even if not stronger than real utilities in other classes, and we get them for “free”), unless ur running elixirs which then is understandable but its a downside to running the simplest builds.

and being forced 30 points into a trait line kills build diversity, something the engineers has right now.

google.3709:

and being forced 30 points into a trait line kills build diversity, something the engineers has right now.

Under my idea you only need to invest thirty points into one line if you want to use Kit Refinement. If you currently feel that you need Kit Refinement for your engineer then you’ve just made my point about engineer build diversity for me. Thank you.