Guild Wars 2

Almost nobody uses the wrench kit. Why? It was made to support a turret build, but unfortunately , using it means you are down a turret, because it takes up a slot where a turret could be (Turrets are also a bit too fragile, but that’s a discussion for another thread). That, and even if you could have 4 turrets with it up, it’s not very effective, fun to play, or ‘cool’. Nobody fantasizes about playing a guy swinging around a dinky wrench and pulling loose garbage out of nowhere to pathetically throw at enemies. They do imagine a Frank Reade like character wading in to battle alongside mechanical warmachines of his own creation, crushing man and monster alike with a grease stained hammer and smoke wreathed engines of destruction.

Secondly, we have the least weapon combinations in the game. We even have less than the Elementalist, which makes no sense as we can potentially have 39 skills, but usually only have about 19-24, and frequently have as little as 14. The elementalist on the other hand has 25 at all times, and can potentially have 20 more with summoned weapons. In addition to this, we are the only profession with no melee weapon. We need the hammer, it thematically fits the class best, fulfills the melee requirement, and would put us at least equal with the elementalist on weapon combos.

I believe these problems could be solved jointly. Get rid of the wrench kit, and make the hammer the engineers melee weapon of choice with a utility based kit similar to the wrench.

I actually have an idea for the basic basic attack that would add utility for not only turrets but also the mine, (or mine kit if it returns) bomb kit, elixir gun, and elixirs.

Build//Maintain//Destroy
Three-hit combo
Build: Swing your hammer to deal light damage in an arc, repair turrets in that same arc.
Maintain: Swing your hammer to deal moderate damage in an arc, reapply the most recently added boon to allies and the most recently added conditions to enemies in that same arc.
Destroy: Swing your hammer to deal heavy damage in an arc, set-off any explosives in that same arc. (this would include mines and bombs)

Figure bumping this after four days ain’t so bad.

Opinions? Suggestions? Threats?

Everybody keeps saying the Engineers should get a Hammer. Engineers should NOT get a Hammer. Engineers already have five different two-hander weapon replacers, they don’t need another. Besides, most engineers don’t use two-handed sledgehammers in their work.

What Engineers should get is the MACE, a one-handed melee weapon that they can use with offhand pistols and shields. They could also use them in offhand if they like. This would also drive demand for Maces since they are very under-utilized. If they wanted to they could just migrate the Wrench powerset to the Mace skills. They could also add a Wrench model as an alternative skin for the Mace.

This would do several things. One, it would mean you wouldn’t need to take up a utility slot to use the Wrench effects. Two, it means that there would be an alternate main-hand weapon, just like Elementalists can choose dagger or scepter for mainhand. Engineer is the only class that currently only has one mainhand option. Three, it’d be awesome.

Elementalist is a whole differnet ball game. But unlike other classes Engineers have more skill combinations (because each utility counts as two skills instead of one)

I’d frankly suggest a builder kit instead, remove one of the tool kit abilities (or move wrench throw to a kit ability, and this as toolbelt), replace it with build combat turret: a turret which constantly loses health, but is otherwise a rifle turret (15 second cooldown) (note: it means that you can manage to get up multiple turrets from this ability, if you can upkeep them all). And add another ability somewhere to command turrets: grants an attack boost to all turrets you control, and forces them to attack a single target (long cooldown, maybe 45-60 seconds?).

Ohoni.6057:

Everybody keeps saying the Engineers should get a Hammer. Engineers should NOT get a Hammer. Engineers already have five different two-hander weapon replacers, they don’t need another. Besides, most engineers don’t use two-handed sledgehammers in their work.

What Engineers should get is the MACE, a one-handed melee weapon that they can use with offhand pistols and shields. They could also use them in offhand if they like. This would also drive demand for Maces since they are very under-utilized. If they wanted to they could just migrate the Wrench powerset to the Mace skills. They could also add a Wrench model as an alternative skin for the Mace.

This would do several things. One, it would mean you wouldn’t need to take up a utility slot to use the Wrench effects. Two, it means that there would be an alternate main-hand weapon, just like Elementalists can choose dagger or scepter for mainhand. Engineer is the only class that currently only has one mainhand option. Three, it’d be awesome.

I’d still prefer the hammer, but I would be okay with the mace. We just need some kind of melee weapon, and every time some dork says “you have the wrench” I want to beat sense into him; the wrench is NOT a weapon, it’s a tool, it hardly does any damage and all five of its abilities are pure utility/support. If it was a weapon you would be able to use it like a weapon and actually rely on it for damage output.

And, I must admit, I’m not really getting what Psaakryn is suggesting. Just replace the wrench kit with a ‘build’ kit? But, that just exacerbates the problem, then we have no melee at all, neither by kit nor weapon.

We may not have a direct melee weapon, but we’d still have “melee” builds. Bombs for instance is practically melee due to it’s range. And isn’t that what counts? It’s not like elementalist smack players with their daggers and staffs after all.

I don’t know, those really don’t feel like melee. The dagger on the elementalist isn’t truly melee, just really short range, but you really do feel like a melee combatant in spite of that fact, and that’s what counts. The bomb kit, at least for me, doesn’t have the visceral feel of a melee weapon.

And anybody know why it isn’t letting me use quotes all of a sudden?

Yeah, and really Rifle and Pistol/Pistol, on an Engineer, are semi-melee. They are at least as melee as Dagger/Dagger is for an Ele. They have some middle-distance attacks, but most of their best damage attacks are designed to be used in melee range, like Blowtorch and Blunderbuss. Just because they’re guns does not mean that they’re meant to be used at long ranges.

But I do think they would benefit from a different one-hander option, if only so you could use the offhand shield or pistol with some variety other than pistol main.

Conncept.7638:

I’d still prefer the hammer, but I would be okay with the mace. We just need some kind of melee weapon, and every time some dork says “you have the wrench” I want to beat sense into him; the wrench is NOT a weapon, it’s a tool, it hardly does any damage and all five of its abilities are pure utility/support. If it was a weapon you would be able to use it like a weapon and actually rely on it for damage output.

The Tool Kit is pretty powerful with the right build. I run 0/20/0/20/30 build and I do 2k auto-attack criticals on squishier targets. I’ve critted 5k with Pry Bar and Throw Wrench is pretty strong.

I’ll link my build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fcAQFAUlspicnwSdF17IxoHkW0bGkCAnXRKeMlB;TgAg0CnowxgjAHLOOck4A

The Tool Kit is highly underrated, but it’s a pretty solid melee weapon. Just wish the third skill in the attack chain was faster.

If the third attack was faster they’d have to scale down the damage to compensate. And reduce the overall DPS as well for balance, since attacking faster have other advantages over attacking slower.

I don’t think so. A faster, but less damaging attack, would be harder to avoid. In other words, I would rather hit for 2k on a 1 second swing time, than a more likely dodge a 4k hit on a 2 second swing time. (Animation is a dead give away) Also, it would be easier to stack Vulnerability since you cycle through the auto-attack swings easier.

Edit: I see what you’re saying, and I change my stance on the issue.

Aristio.2784:

I don’t think so. A faster, but less damaging attack, would be harder to avoid. In other words, I would rather hit for 2k on a 1 second swing time, than 4k on a 2 second swing time. Also, it would be easier to stack Vulnerability since you cycle through the auto-attack swings easier.

You just explained why they’ll have the scale down the damage lower than the average DPS you have currently if they lowered the attack speed.

Off-work, wanted to check up on this. Thanks for the link Aristio, and the input of course.

I like your idea Conn.

I find myself using toolkit quite often in tPvP… The magnet is awesome for pulling someone of the point or pulling a runner back to you.

The only skill I wish was better is the NR:2 skill really a cast time on something that does virtually nothing?