Guild Wars 2

OId topic but I just cant seem to let go of it. I had NO problem with rifle or pistol engi, but hammer/scrapper trait line screams weapon swap to me. I feel so limited using hammer due to lack of range, and knowing I HAVE to take grenades is just annoying. I feel like weapon swap would open up so many more options if I could use rifle/hammer. I could STILL take nades, but the options it would open up for more builds would be a god send

Do you want 10 sec cd on weap swap?? I recommend new kit but never weap swap. If you want weapon swap play other class.

David.5974:

Do you want 10 sec cd on weap swap?? I recommend new kit but never weap swap. If you want weapon swap play other class.

What about playing this class, not being forced to take kits all the time, and be free to use all those other utilities that can’t find a slot exactly because we already have to use those slots for kits?
Kits as they are now force devs to balance all the class over them – main weapons included. And it is obvious why they have to do that – if they balanced the class over the main weapon only, a kit engineer would be overpowered. So they have to balance over the “worst cases”. Problem is, there are a ton of gaps in between…and such a balancing forces us upon the worst cases" itself.
That’s the glaring issue with the class. Even if most people just want to ignore it willfully. We’re a class forced to be balanced over assumptions. Making those assumptions reality in doing so.

And with elite specializations it even became more absurd.
We get a main weapon that can’t work standalone due of us being balanced over kits.
And we get utilities that we can’t actually take because we’re forced to use kits anyway.
And it will be the same for any single future elite specialization we’ll ever get. They are supposed to change how we play, but for us, all it changes are some buttons in a rotation for that brief time in which we aren’t using a kit.
And people are satisfied with that. Heh.

Manuhell.2759:

David.5974:

Do you want 10 sec cd on weap swap?? I recommend new kit but never weap swap. If you want weapon swap play other class.

What about playing this class, not being forced to take kits all the time, and be free to use all those other utilities that can’t find a slot exactly because we already have to use those slots for kits?
Kits as they are now force devs to balance all the class over them – main weapons included. And it is obvious why they have to do that – if they balanced the class over the main weapon only, a kit engineer would be overpowered. So they have to balance over the “worst cases”. Problem is, there are a ton of gaps in between…and such a balancing forces us upon the worst cases" itself.
That’s the glaring issue with the class. Even if most people just want to ignore it willfully. We’re a class forced to be balanced over assumptions. Making those assumptions reality in doing so.

And with elite specializations it even became more absurd.
We get a main weapon that can’t work standalone due of us being balanced over kits.
And we get utilities that we can’t actually take because we’re forced to use kits anyway.
And it will be the same for any single future elite specialization we’ll ever get. They are supposed to change how we play, but for us, all it changes are some buttons in a rotation for that brief time in which we aren’t using a kit.
And people are satisfied with that. Heh.

I’m so happy someone typed this up in depth. Thank you, seriously

You already ‘have’ to take grenades now.

And at this point, this is never going to happen. Much more productive to fix what exists than to revamp it.

lorddarkflare.9186:

You already ‘have’ to take grenades now.

And at this point, this is never going to happen. Much more productive to fix what exists than to revamp it.

Never say never my friend. Rev getting Weapon Swap in BETA still has me grasping at straws

Manuhell.2759:

David.5974:

Do you want 10 sec cd on weap swap?? I recommend new kit but never weap swap. If you want weapon swap play other class.

What about playing this class, not being forced to take kits all the time, and be free to use all those other utilities that can’t find a slot exactly because we already have to use those slots for kits?

“Forced” doesn’t mean what you seem to think it means. I guarantee you that when you utilize a kit, you “chose” to use it.

The profession is designed around being optimal with kits. The funny part is that this was suggested shortly after the profession was announced, and reinforced during the betas, it is not like this is a new concept here.

All I see is that you are requesting that they destroy the profession as a whole, for your personal desires. That is a bad reason to do anything.

Manuhell.2759:

Kits as they are now force devs to balance all the class over them – main weapons included. And it is obvious why they have to do that – if they balanced the class over the main weapon only, a kit engineer would be overpowered. So they have to balance over the “worst cases”. Problem is, there are a ton of gaps in between…and such a balancing forces us upon the worst cases" itself.
That’s the glaring issue with the class. Even if most people just want to ignore it willfully. We’re a class forced to be balanced over assumptions. Making those assumptions reality in doing so.

Again, you appear to let the meaning of “force” confuse your point and intent. What is worse is that your point about why they cannot balance around main weapons only supports how adding a weapon swap would be horrible. Then they have to change all turrets, gyros, elixirs, and gadgets in a negative way. NO thank you.

Manuhell.2759:

And with elite specializations it even became more absurd.
We get a main weapon that can’t work standalone due of us being balanced over kits.
And we get utilities that we can’t actually take because we’re forced to use kits anyway.
And it will be the same for any single future elite specialization we’ll ever get. They are supposed to change how we play, but for us, all it changes are some buttons in a rotation for that brief time in which we aren’t using a kit.
And people are satisfied with that. Heh.

Again the definition of "forced is tripping you up. Feel free to play one of the 8 professions with weapons swap.

I can’t believe you would so awfully suggest destroying the entire profession for your personal desires, Heh.

coglin.1867:

Manuhell.2759:

David.5974:

Do you want 10 sec cd on weap swap?? I recommend new kit but never weap swap. If you want weapon swap play other class.

What about playing this class, not being forced to take kits all the time, and be free to use all those other utilities that can’t find a slot exactly because we already have to use those slots for kits?

“Forced” doesn’t mean what you seem to think it means. I guarantee you that when you utilize a kit, you “chose” to use it.

The profession is designed around being optimal with kits. The funny part is that this was suggested shortly after the profession was announced, and reinforced during the betas, it is not like this is a new concept here.

All I see is that you are requesting that they destroy the profession as a whole, for your personal desires. That is a bad reason to do anything.

Manuhell.2759:

Kits as they are now force devs to balance all the class over them – main weapons included. And it is obvious why they have to do that – if they balanced the class over the main weapon only, a kit engineer would be overpowered. So they have to balance over the “worst cases”. Problem is, there are a ton of gaps in between…and such a balancing forces us upon the worst cases" itself.
That’s the glaring issue with the class. Even if most people just want to ignore it willfully. We’re a class forced to be balanced over assumptions. Making those assumptions reality in doing so.

Again, you appear to let the meaning of “force” confuse your point and intent. What is worse is that your point about why they cannot balance around main weapons only supports how adding a weapon swap would be horrible. Then they have to change all turrets, gyros, elixirs, and gadgets in a negative way. NO thank you.

Manuhell.2759:

And with elite specializations it even became more absurd.
We get a main weapon that can’t work standalone due of us being balanced over kits.
And we get utilities that we can’t actually take because we’re forced to use kits anyway.
And it will be the same for any single future elite specialization we’ll ever get. They are supposed to change how we play, but for us, all it changes are some buttons in a rotation for that brief time in which we aren’t using a kit.
And people are satisfied with that. Heh.

Again the definition of "forced is tripping you up. Feel free to play one of the 8 professions with weapons swap.

I can’t believe you would so awfully suggest destroying the entire profession for your personal desires, Heh.

Actually hes 100% right. Weapon Swap wouldnt destroy the profession at all. You have very little to say, so youre focusing on his use of the word “forced”. You offer little to no feedback other than to look for ways to attack his wordage. Engi has been, and still is, in a fine place.

The problem is that every build is FORCED to take MULTIPLE kits to be VIABLE in anything beyond killing moas open world. I love kits, theyre great, but it destroys our utility.

Now if all our utilities were just Kits and/or Elixers, we would be fine, but its not that way. We just got a handful of gyros that cant fit on our utility bars. Now, youre going to just sit back and say play another class thats not how its meant to be etc, which is fine, youre entitled to your opinion, but dont say his opinion is to “Destroy” a class when he explained, to the T mind you, on why he believes what believes what he believes and you just sit back and say Forced, heh.

Azure.8670:

Actually hes 100% right. Weapon Swap wouldnt destroy the profession at all. You have very little to say, so youre focusing on his use of the word “forced”. You offer little to no feedback other than to look for ways to attack his wordage. Engi has been, and still is, in a fine place.

100% right eh?

You appear to confuse your subjective opinion with that of actual objective fact.

Offering that he stated provable dishonesties is quit a lot to say if you ask me. Simply because you do not like something, doesn’t make it okay to be dishonest about it. Getting angry at me for pointing out facts doesn’t help your perspective for the destruction of the profession.

Azure.8670:

The problem is that every build is FORCED to take MULTIPLE kits to be VIABLE in anything beyond killing moas open world. I love kits, theyre great, but it destroys our utility.

Did you capitalize the words you knew you were going to use incorrectly?

Not certain you are aware what viable means in relation to GW2. I think what you mean is optimal. Viable is subjective at best, and varies between skill levels.

Azure.8670:

Now if all our utilities were just Kits and/or Elixers, we would be fine, but its not that way. We just got a handful of gyros that cant fit on our utility bars. Now, youre going to just sit back and say play another class thats not how its meant to be etc, which is fine, youre entitled to your opinion, but dont say his opinion is to “Destroy” a class when he explained, to the T mind you, on why he believes what believes what he believes and you just sit back and say Forced, heh.

I have videos posted that disprove this entire paragraph.

I do not think opinion means what you think it means. By definition, something make in a declarative statement, is not an opinion. It requires a qualifier of subjection, or perspective.

Doesn’t strike me particularly rational to claim that although he said one thing, that he meant another. If he meant something else, perhaps you should let him clarify that. Something tells me clairvoyance is not your strong suit.

Azure.8670:

Actually hes 100% right. Weapon Swap wouldnt destroy the profession at all. You have very little to say, so youre focusing on his use of the word “forced”. You offer little to no feedback other than to look for ways to attack his wordage. Engi has been, and still is, in a fine place.

The problem is that every build is FORCED to take MULTIPLE kits to be VIABLE in anything beyond killing moas open world. I love kits, theyre great, but it destroys our utility.

I havent used a build with more than 1 kit in 6+ months, in both pve & pvp & have had no issues, so no you are not forced to take multiple kits, you choose to take multiple kits

Don’t expect a weapon swap. I believe engi was the last developed class, so as you can see in elixirs a lot of copy pasted skills from other classes. I was hoping hammer engi was going to be awesome but it isn’t, cause as you state, a ranged weapon other than nades is needed. Nades are either your thing or the worst weapon in game.
I’m outphasing my engineer cause i don’t believe it will ever change that much. Sure scrapper version 2 might be implemented in the future but it’s not gonna be a whole new class, just some tweak on top of what you have.

My advise is if you don’t like engineer in its current state (like me) then move on to something else cause no matter how much people complain and bring in constructive feedback, engineer will remain the same with at least 1 kit (but 2-3 in most cases) foeced down your throat in order to be viable.
A good example here is how the community was begging for no more minions as turrets were already there. Glad we got more minions..
Would a weapon swap fix this? Yes
Would a riflish kit fix it? Yes, though still limiting your utilty freedom.
Is either gonna happen? Nope

zxstanyxz.8769:

Azure.8670:

Actually hes 100% right. Weapon Swap wouldnt destroy the profession at all. You have very little to say, so youre focusing on his use of the word “forced”. You offer little to no feedback other than to look for ways to attack his wordage. Engi has been, and still is, in a fine place.

The problem is that every build is FORCED to take MULTIPLE kits to be VIABLE in anything beyond killing moas open world. I love kits, theyre great, but it destroys our utility.

I havent used a build with more than 1 kit in 6+ months, in both pve & pvp & have had no issues, so no you are not forced to take multiple kits, you choose to take multiple kits

Now that you mention it, some of the PvP tournaments have been won by teams with engies with no kits and all elixirs, and many many have been won by teams with engineers with only 1 kit. Seems at high level, that slick shoes and elixirs are quit popular in most builds.

coglin.1867:

“Forced” doesn’t mean what you seem to think it means. I guarantee you that when you utilize a kit, you “chose” to use it.

The profession is designed around being optimal with kits. The funny part is that this was suggested shortly after the profession was announced, and reinforced during the betas, it is not like this is a new concept here.

All I see is that you are requesting that they destroy the profession as a whole, for your personal desires. That is a bad reason to do anything.

The same way they suggested we can defend and control areas with turrets, you mean?
Let’s speak frankly, kits were made like that only because they made the profession in a hurry and they needed to recycle assets as much as possible. At release they didn’t even use our weapon stats or sigils, they just called for the respective enviromental weapons. That’s the same reason why most of the elixir skills just recycled other classes’ effects.
They ended up buffing kits because that because that was the fastest way to try to put us in a decent state. And then they ended up having to balance even kits over their traited forms (see: grenades).
It never worked properly, not even during the release.
And certainly it can’t work now that we’ve got additional elements that probably weren’t even thought of at those times (like elite specializations).

coglin.1867:

Again, you appear to let the meaning of “force” confuse your point and intent. What is worse is that your point about why they cannot balance around main weapons only supports how adding a weapon swap would be horrible. Then they have to change all turrets, gyros, elixirs, and gadgets in a negative way. NO thank you.

They cannot balance around main weapons being viable standalone due to kits. Their dps has to be lower due to kits, they even wrote so in the balance philosophies.
Thus they would just have to change kits, as they’re the ones detrimental to the balance.
And then we would be finally able to properly use other utilities as well and not be subpar.

coglin.1867:

Again the definition of "forced is tripping you up. Feel free to play one of the 8 professions with weapons swap.

I can’t believe you would so awfully suggest destroying the entire profession for your personal desires, Heh.

I could say the same about you and the other people that want to play “kit” instead of the “engineer” class.

And since you’ve been talking about kitless pvp builds…should i remind you that the rest of the game isn’t about staying inside a circle and surviving?
In the other modes we also need to kill enemies. And we won’t do that with some undertuned weapon autoattack. Even with might stacked on – something that we wouldn’t get via HGH anyway, since there are more efficent ways to stack might in a party.

Weapon swap might be an idea. Good or bad, I can not decide but it is an idea. However it is not an idea with priority.

What engineer class needs is so simple, so certain, so solid: “CLASS WITHOUT BUGS!”

After all the bugs are fixed, we can see what this class truly can do. Then we can decide if it really lacks weapon swap or not.

This is actually very simple.

The engineer works as it stands. That much is true. But you cannot deny that the entire profession is… rushed. Incomplete, and rushed. The same goes for our “elite” specialization. Once again, engineers ended up being last in the line of priority.

Our kits are the only things that really allows us to play on par with any other class, and that’s really only if we’re juggling them like crazy. Which is impractical.

Allow me to strengthen my point.

This is a game, in which every profession (or class, if you prefer) have it’s own unique class mechanic. A class mechanic balanced to make it a lot stronger.

Revenant – Legends
Warrior – Adrenalin
Guardian – Virtues
Thief – Steal / initiative and movement
Ranger – Pets and swapping
Mesmer – Clones and shatters
Necromancer – Life energy
Elementalist – attuments

Each of these mechanics can be strengthened and evolved throughout EACH and EVERY one of their specializations (and now their elite specializations).

Revenant – Legendary Dragon, a new and different set of kitten that’s pure awesome.
Guardian – The virtues are reworked in their first minor trait, and much improved.
Warrior – Berserk-mode, with adrenaline. With new buffs, everything is stronger now.
Ranger – Further synergy with their pets, and pet swapping over druid.
Thief – Dodging and initiative use has been improved, improving their mechanic.
Necromancer – Death shroud gets completely reworked as an awesome new reaper.
Elementalists – Overloading their attunements, for nice new effects.
Mesmer – Alacrity, strengthened through their class mechanic: clones and shatteres.

Now. I’ve played all these classes, and I’ve read up on what people like and don’t like… And I’ve realized that the engineer really don’t have a class mechanic.

We have the “Tool Belt”. Yes. We do. But is that really a class mechanic worth mentioning? Is it even a mechanic at ALL? There is nothing, NOTHING, other than the Tools specialization that even effects our Tool Belt!

Where every other profession have options to improve their mechanics in different ways across the specializations, we have literally no other way to affect it other than going through Tools.

Not to mention, even after the feature changes in April, our specializations are a complete mess of things that don’t work or are insanely underperforming in most situations.

The engineer is, and will always be, the least liked profession in gw2, simply because it’s half a mess that someone put together in a week or so.

Which makes me sad.

alain.1659:

Weapon swap might be an idea. Good or bad, I can not decide but it is an idea. However it is not an idea with priority.

What engineer class needs is so simple, so certain, so solid: “CLASS WITHOUT BUGS!”

After all the bugs are fixed, we can see what this class truly can do. Then we can decide if it really lacks weapon swap or not.

I agree, but bugs abound for most professions.

This is not a question about our ability to be effective. We are clearly very good.

It is a question of overall diversity and optimization.

Kits aren’t optimal because of the lack of weapon swap, it’s the ability to have lots of high damage attacks as well as good utilities and the ability to switch between them with virtually no cooldown. If you added weapon swap, you would change an optimal setup from one weapon and three kits to two weapons and three kits.

Kits are optimal because of how kits work, adding weapon swap would change nothing.

glehmann.9586:

Kits aren’t optimal because of the lack of weapon swap, it’s the ability to have lots of high damage attacks as well as good utilities and the ability to switch between them with virtually no cooldown. If you added weapon swap, you would change an optimal setup from one weapon and three kits to two weapons and three kits.

Kits are optimal because of how kits work, adding weapon swap would change nothing.

Seconded.

I really wonder though… Is this really what they had in mind when designing the engineer? Swapping kits every cast, to use the strongest skills on CD over four kits?

If so, anet game design is horrendous.

glehmann.9586:

Kits aren’t optimal because of the lack of weapon swap, it’s the ability to have lots of high damage attacks as well as good utilities and the ability to switch between them with virtually no cooldown. If you added weapon swap, you would change an optimal setup from one weapon and three kits to two weapons and three kits.

Kits are optimal because of how kits work, adding weapon swap would change nothing.

Allie.4925:

glehmann.9586:

Kits aren’t optimal because of the lack of weapon swap, it’s the ability to have lots of high damage attacks as well as good utilities and the ability to switch between them with virtually no cooldown. If you added weapon swap, you would change an optimal setup from one weapon and three kits to two weapons and three kits.

Kits are optimal because of how kits work, adding weapon swap would change nothing.

Seconded.

I really wonder though… Is this really what they had in mind when designing the engineer? Swapping kits every cast, to use the strongest skills on CD over four kits?

If so, anet game design is horrendous.

Always good to see people who have a working understanding of the class.

In a world with weapon swap, the hard hitting skills from hammer and Rifle would just be added to the Zerker Rotation.

I am of the opinion that the number of kits in a build should inform its role, but in the opposite direction as it currently is.

How I see it:

-1 Kit: DPS
-2 Kits: Sustain
-3+ Kits: Support

Now, the best way to do this would be to balance the traits and skills around this concept.

The easy way is just to hard bake the rules into the class mechanic.

lorddarkflare.9186:

glehmann.9586:

Kits aren’t optimal because of the lack of weapon swap, it’s the ability to have lots of high damage attacks as well as good utilities and the ability to switch between them with virtually no cooldown. If you added weapon swap, you would change an optimal setup from one weapon and three kits to two weapons and three kits.

Kits are optimal because of how kits work, adding weapon swap would change nothing.

Allie.4925:

glehmann.9586:

Kits aren’t optimal because of the lack of weapon swap, it’s the ability to have lots of high damage attacks as well as good utilities and the ability to switch between them with virtually no cooldown. If you added weapon swap, you would change an optimal setup from one weapon and three kits to two weapons and three kits.

Kits are optimal because of how kits work, adding weapon swap would change nothing.

Seconded.

I really wonder though… Is this really what they had in mind when designing the engineer? Swapping kits every cast, to use the strongest skills on CD over four kits?

If so, anet game design is horrendous.

Always good to see people who have a working understanding of the class.

In a world with weapon swap, the hard hitting skills from hammer and Rifle would just be added to the Zerker Rotation.

I am of the opinion that the number of kits in a build should inform its role, but in the opposite direction as it currently is.

How I see it:

-1 Kit: DPS
-2 Kits: Sustain
-3+ Kits: Support

Now, the best way to do this would be to balance the traits and skills around this concept.

The easy way is just to hard bake the rules into the class mechanic.

Unfortunately, this would involve a massive overhaul to the core mechanic of the class, something which anet explicitly said they would never do when they launched.

Edit: I agree that it’s needed though.

Another way to do it, would be to lock kits to their specializations, rather than have it free for all. Kind of like how gyros are attached to the scrapper today.

Explosives – Granades
Firearms – Flamethrower
Alchemy – Elixir Gun
Inventions – Bombs (and bring back the bomb healing, perhaps)
Tools – Tool kit

and maintain the mortar as an elite you can use across all.

Would perhaps give some incentive to get creative rather than just use the strongest skills across all. As it stands, while it works great, is just really, really dumb.

I don’t know, might be a dumb idea this too, but something.

It is not a bad idea, I have had the same thought.

If you accept Kits as the class mechanic—because they are—balancing can be as easy as your suggestion.

-One Grandmaster in each line that significantly increases the efficacy of one or two associated kits.

-Buff the other two grandmasters to ensure true competition (think HGH and IP in the same line) and slightly tweak the damage-only kits to have more utility.

And EIB should stay dead. It was a bad trait that people have lionized in its absence. Only way it should come back is if it affect all kits. THAT would be a good starting point for a decent Grandmaster.

Allie.4925:

Another way to do it, would be to lock kits to their specializations, rather than have it free for all. Kind of like how gyros are attached to the scrapper today.

Explosives – Granades
Firearms – Flamethrower
Alchemy – Elixir Gun
Inventions – Bombs (and bring back the bomb healing, perhaps)
Tools – Tool kit

and maintain the mortar as an elite you can use across all.

Would perhaps give some incentive to get creative rather than just use the strongest skills across all. As it stands, while it works great, is just really, really dumb.

I don’t know, might be a dumb idea this too, but something.

This is an amazing idea! It is a little nerf, but it’s reasonable and suit engi well. It’s brilliant i’m in.

glehmann.9586:

Kits aren’t optimal because of the lack of weapon swap, it’s the ability to have lots of high damage attacks as well as good utilities and the ability to switch between them with virtually no cooldown. If you added weapon swap, you would change an optimal setup from one weapon and three kits to two weapons and three kits.

Kits are optimal because of how kits work, adding weapon swap would change nothing.

As i said multiple times before, it’s a vicious cycle.
Due to how kits work – as in, free swap and no limitation of sort – they had to decrease the dps of the main weapon (we know that for certain, as it was mentioned in the balance philosophies). But they wouldn’t have been able to balance over the main weapons anyway, be it one or two.
The reason is simple. If we were able to properly work with a single main weapon or two, having kits on top of that would have ended up overpowered.
They’ve had to balance everything upon the worst case – the optimal setup you mentioned. But as things stand now, the discrepancies between the optimal setup and one that doesn’t rely on kits are far too high.
As i mentioned above, it’s a vicious cycle.
We have to use kits because we’re mediocre without them.
But we were made mediocre on purpose because we can use kits (as we would be too strong otherwise).

Imho, the best way to solve this issue would be something like:
- Give the engineer weapon swap and put some sort of limitation to kits (a cooldown on swap, for example) then rebalance what needs to be rebalanced now that kits don’t have to dictate the balance of the class anymore.
- Put an elite specialization that locks that second weapon slot if needed and makes the class work like now. A sort of “kit expert” spec, with a first minor trait that removes the limitation imposed above. Traits would be mainly kit-related, maybe some “on-swap” bonus, maybe a way to drop kits that allies can use too. Some trait could even be moved in this trait line (streamlined kits, for example) to free some space that can be used by traits for our actual mechanic, the toolbelt.
(and put a collection to unlock a deluxe, shiny hobosack related to this spec)

Note that elite specializations don’t necessarily have to be mutually exclusive – they’ve mentioned in some post that they were still thinking about that part.

coglin.1867:

Now that you mention it, some of the PvP tournaments have been won by teams with engies with no kits and all elixirs

Not once, ever. Seriously, this has never happened. The guy has a point that in that the game seems to favor & rewards players who use kits. There’s not been an iteration of the meta Engi since the game launched that had zero kits and survived a competitive environment. Coming from an Engineer who has had a keen interest in competitive PvP Engi builds since 2012.

Greyjoy.5167:

Allie.4925:

Another way to do it, would be to lock kits to their specializations, rather than have it free for all. Kind of like how gyros are attached to the scrapper today.

Explosives – Granades
Firearms – Flamethrower
Alchemy – Elixir Gun
Inventions – Bombs (and bring back the bomb healing, perhaps)
Tools – Tool kit

and maintain the mortar as an elite you can use across all.

Would perhaps give some incentive to get creative rather than just use the strongest skills across all. As it stands, while it works great, is just really, really dumb.

I don’t know, might be a dumb idea this too, but something.

This is an amazing idea! It is a little nerf, but it’s reasonable and suit engi well. It’s brilliant i’m in.

It’s something I really wondered why they didn’t do from launch, as our current class mechanic is rather lacking (Tool Belt vs Attunements? C’mon.) other than kits, but kits are kind of overused.

Also, it’s really not hard to do. The gyros have shown that it’s possible, and revenants have shown that people accept not having all their utilities available across all specs.

Edit: also, the grandmaster traits across the different specializations should vary more, so that if you choose one, you’re not forced to use the kit bound to that specialization.

I have to say though, a weapon swap idea does intrigue me a bit. Personally I like kits, but I’d like the option to play without them as well. The revenant during the early betas had no weapon swap, and people complained it felt wonky. I didn’t even notice, as that’s how I always feel whenever I try to play an engineer without kits. Why not add a weapon swap as an option for scrappers, as our elite specializations specific new ability. Combined with my idea above, it could be really fun.

Let’s take a count of how many skills we have:
5 tool belt skills
+5 weapon skills
+5 skills from med kit
+Up to 15 skills from 3 kits in Utility
+5 skills from mortal kit in our elite
=35 skills, which we can swap to WITHOUT A(ny appreciable) COOLDOWN
Elementalist has the most with 40 skills (5 weapon + 1 heal + 3 utility + 1 elite) * 4 attunements. Though they can raise that even further with conjured weapons, but those have limited charges, expire after a limited amount of time, and have cooldowns. Tempest can add 4 more by overloading their attunements.

archmagus.7249:

Let’s take a count of how many skills we have:
5 tool belt skills
+5 weapon skills
+5 skills from med kit
+Up to 15 skills from 3 kits in Utility
+5 skills from mortal kit in our elite
=35 skills, which we can swap to WITHOUT A(ny appreciable) COOLDOWN
Elementalist has the most with 40 skills (5 weapon + 1 heal + 3 utility + 1 elite) * 4 attunements. Though they can raise that even further with conjured weapons, but those have limited charges, expire after a limited amount of time, and have cooldowns. Tempest can add 4 more by overloading their attunements.

Heal, utility skills and elite doesnt change when u swap attunements. Misscalculation i guees. Ele has 20 weapon skills, 4 attunements (which i count as it gives boons and has to be clicked), 1 heal, 3 utility, 1 elite = 29skills not including conjured weapons and overloads.

Allie.4925:

Also, it’s really not hard to do. The gyros have shown that it’s possible, and revenants have shown that people accept not having all their utilities available across all specs.

Please feel free to introduce those people to the fully balanced and totally inflexible Revenant playstyle. Then let the other people, who actually like to play Engie and not Rev, keep their customizable utilities. Thanks.

While I agree kits are somewhat inevitable for the commonplace engie, and I fully support the concept of the Engie being a rushed up proffession that deserves much more dev’s time and polishing, I also think some of you are missing two very important points about the Engie playstyle: 1- Personal preferences. 2- Fun. Not all people like the same things, and I’m sure most poeple that already play Engie does it because they like it as it is.

What I’m trying to say is I don’t think the solution to the “problem” is to normalize the engineer so it becomes more like the other proffessions. People who chose Engie, play and love the proffession BECAUSE it is complex, have a lot to mix and match, and plays really different from the more “balanced” ones. Please dont forget that, and pause a moment before trying to transform Engie into an Ele or Revenant. We Engies want a better proff, but one that still shines because of its versatile, customizable, frenetic and special madness.

archmagus.7249:

Let’s take a count of how many skills we have:
5 tool belt skills
+5 weapon skills
+5 skills from med kit
+Up to 15 skills from 3 kits in Utility
+5 skills from mortal kit in our elite
=35 skills, which we can swap to WITHOUT A(ny appreciable) COOLDOWN
Elementalist has the most with 40 skills (5 weapon + 1 heal + 3 utility + 1 elite) * 4 attunements. Though they can raise that even further with conjured weapons, but those have limited charges, expire after a limited amount of time, and have cooldowns. Tempest can add 4 more by overloading their attunements.

I’m not entirely getting your point… Do you mean to say that we’re strong because we have so many skills?

While somewhat true, that doesn’t mean it’s a very good design. I mean, firstly, how many of those 35 spells do you actually use regularly? I find I almost never need to use more than 5-6 skills off cooldown to do respectable damage. Granted, those skills are from all the kits, but still. 1 skill per kit.

It’s not very difficult to juggle kits at all. All you need is a little practice. In some ways, the engineer is the most simple class to play, because all you need to do is weapon swap and count to 5.

Ardid.7203:

Allie.4925:

Also, it’s really not hard to do. The gyros have shown that it’s possible, and revenants have shown that people accept not having all their utilities available across all specs.

Please feel free to introduce those people to the fully balanced and totally inflexible Revenant playstyle. Then let the other people, who actually like to play Engie and not Rev, keep their customizable utilities. Thanks.

While I agree kits are somewhat inevitable for the commonplace engie, and I fully support the concept of the Engie being a rushed up proffession that deserves much more dev’s time and polishing, I also think some of you are missing two very important points about the Engie playstyle: 1- Personal preferences. 2- Fun. Not all people like the same things, and I’m sure most poeple that already play Engie does it because they like it as it is.

What I’m trying to say is I don’t think the solution to the “problem” is to normalize the engineer so it becomes more like the other proffessions. People who chose Engie, play and love the proffession BECAUSE it is complex, have a lot to mix and match, and plays really different from the more “balanced” ones. Please dont forget that, and pause a moment before trying to transform Engie into an Ele or Revenant. We Engies want a better proff, but one that still shines because of its versatile, customizable, frenetic and special madness.

I think you misunderstood my argument. The engineer is not at all a complex class. All you need to do is count to 5 and weapon swap at the right time. In PvE that is. We have a lot of options, but all in all, we are an incredibly messy profession. I’m not arguing that the revenant is better. I play this game because of my engineer.

My point was, a simple change (like the one I mentioned earlier) could fix a lot. Instead of shooting down a suggestion, try to make a constructive argument as to why exactly that wouldn’t work.

The way I see it, the change I suggested above would hardly change anything.

I’d also dislike a weapon swap. I like having to swap between kits and keep track of cooldowns, and once you get the muscle memory down it’s pretty straightfoward. Even the big scary dps rotation isn’t that bad once you put some practice into it. If getting a weapon swap means I’d miss out on what makes Engineer play differently from all of the classes, even Elementalist, I’d pass.

That said, if there were any kind of weapon swap I’d prefer it just be taking Tool Kit and making it the “secondary weapon” for every Engineer. Makes sense thematically to always carry around your tools, means every Engineer can always repair their turrets (because anyone even does that?), and it’s a super defensive kit. You’d have to replace the utility with something else, most likely, and it’d give Engineers a huge advantage in the defense department.

I honestly know that if I could rock a rifle AND a hammer AND grenades AND two more utilities + elite, things would melt (particularly breakbars: rifle + hammer Engineer could single-handedly nuke every inch of blue). Engineers are in a good place at the moment, even if we’re wonky and take some practice. Our traits can use some work, and I’d really like to see every trait line be a tough decision. I think most classes can say the same thing, and they don’t have the added benefit of having as much utility as we do in just about every mode.

I Don’t mind kits but I do Kinda agree with the OP on the fact that unless you take nades than your basically screwed when it comes to ranged attacks with scrapper and to be honest i personally really dislike grenades/mortar kit I want to be able to fire my autos without constantly having to lead the target all on top of tracking CD’s, positioning, buffs, condis, ect.

Allie, my post wasn’t mean to shoot down anything. In fact I do like the idea of the kits being somehow linked to the specialization lines you prposed before. All I wanted to do was to make sure we don’t forget what makes the Engie different from the rest and fun for us need to be part of any suggestion.

I understand and share the feeling that the Engie is “messy” and “wonky”. But we must ask ourselves… whitout that, will the Engie still be an Engie? There is a line there, IMO, dividing simple bad design from amazing personality, a line we have to tread carefully.

Going more specifically into mechanics.

Weapon Swap: Definitively NO.
Is not what Engie IS: Being weapon swap less is something that define the playstyle and personality of the proffession. It has become a trademark, just like kits and flexible rotations.
Is not what Engie needs: Adding an extra option that requires more balance and polishing doesn’t balance and polish the mess we already have.

Kits with cooldowns: Maybe, I really really doubt it’ll work.
Totally disruptive with Engie’s playstyle, tends to the proffession normalization I reject.
It clearly could balance things and make them more manageable for the devs, but the cost would be high: a balanced but mild, boring Engie is not worth it, IMO.

Kits linked to Specs: Yes, if done right.
IMO, it could be a really Engie-like solution, that keeps the theme and style of the proffession, and can even enhance it.
It also could properly attack the problem, effectively reducing the mess without damaging our playstyle.

A more realistic approuch:

Right now, I think the proffession is so convoluted, that truly balancing it would require enormous effort from the devs, all while heavily impacting the player base, and risking a major blow up for the entire proffession.

So I think the “solution” to the problem requires the old and simple method of meticulously polishing what we have, and replacing those parts that doesn’t fit: we need the devs to really go all the way with the correction of BUGS and ERRORS, and then all the way again just remaking those things that simply don’t work, like the grenade’s AA, the ranged game, the Gyro´s AI, or the F-Gyro.

My sugestion:
- Transform most of the Mortar skills into targeted “seeking” projectile attacks with AoE. Keep only the ally-supporting ones as ground targets. (Also replace the arquebus with a proper, over the shoulder, rocket launcher).
- Convert grenade AA into a projectile targeted attack without ground target. Lower its damage but balance with a high frequency.
- Dump Gyro’s AI and replace it with a tether, invisible to enemies, linking the gyro to the Scrapper. The lenght of the tether would be similar to the Gyro’s AoE. Gyros would float over lower obstacles, and have a slight inertia, requiring the player to apply skill and positioning to control them.
- Convert the F-Gyro into an untargetable source of passive bonuses and conditions, based on the toolbelt skills you have off coldown. If you use a toolbelt, you lose that passive bonus during the cooldown, and the election of your skills will greatly affect what bonuses you receive: Gyro, Turret and Gadget Toolbelt Skills should provide a much better passive bonus than Kits, making effectively more desirable to take them for Scrapper play.

Ardid.7203:

Allie, my post wasn’t mean to shoot down anything. In fact I do like the idea of the kits being somehow linked to the specialization lines you prposed before. All I wanted to do was to make sure we don’t forget what makes the Engie different from the rest and fun for us need to be part of any suggestion.

I understand and share the feeling that the Engie is “messy” and “wonky”. But we must ask ourselves… whitout that, will the Engie still be an Engie? There is a line there, IMO, dividing simple bad design from amazing personality, a line we have to tread carefully.

Going more specifically into mechanics.

Weapon Swap: Definitively NO.
Is not what Engie IS: Being weapon swap less is something that define the playstyle and personality of the proffession. It has become a trademark, just like kits and flexible rotations.
Is not what Engie needs: Adding an extra option that requires more balance and polishing doesn’t balance and polish the mess we already have.

Kits with cooldowns: Maybe, I really really doubt it’ll work.
Totally disruptive with Engie’s playstyle, tends to the proffession normalization I reject.
It clearly could balance things and make them more manageable for the devs, but the cost would be high: a balanced but mild, boring Engie is not worth it, IMO.

Kits linked to Specs: Yes, if done right.
IMO, it could be a really Engie-like solution, that keeps the theme and style of the proffession, and can even enhance it.
It also could properly attack the problem, effectively reducing the mess without damaging our playstyle.

A more realistic approuch:

Right now, I think the proffession is so convoluted, that truly balancing it would require enormous effort from the devs, all while heavily impacting the player base, and risking a major blow up for the entire proffession.

So I think the “solution” to the problem requires the old and simple method of meticulously polishing what we have, and replacing those parts that doesn’t fit: we need the devs to really go all the way with the correction of BUGS and ERRORS, and then all the way again just remaking those things that simply don’t work, like the grenade’s AA, the ranged game, the Gyro´s AI, or the F-Gyro.

My sugestion:
- Transform most of the Mortar skills into targeted “seeking” projectile attacks with AoE. Keep only the ally-supporting ones as ground targets. (Also replace the arquebus with a proper, over the shoulder, rocket launcher).
- Convert grenade AA into a projectile targeted attack without ground target. Lower its damage but balance with a high frequency.
- Dump Gyro’s AI and replace it with a tether, invisible to enemies, linking the gyro to the Scrapper. The lenght of the tether would be similar to the Gyro’s AoE. Gyros would float over lower obstacles, and have a slight inertia, requiring the player to apply skill and positioning to control them.
- Convert the F-Gyro into an untargetable source of passive bonuses and conditions, based on the toolbelt skills you have off coldown. If you use a toolbelt, you lose that passive bonus during the cooldown, and the election of your skills will greatly affect what bonuses you receive: Gyro, Turret and Gadget Toolbelt Skills should provide a much better passive bonus than Kits, making effectively more desirable to take them for Scrapper play.

Then we understand each other a lot better

I don’t know what would break or make the engineer. I agree that the kits are part of the engineers’ personality, and adding a weapon swap could break that. But I’m can’t say, because I don’t know for sure.

Your suggestions is (in simple terms) precisely something I’d like to see as well