Guild Wars 2

I like to suggest that the Weapon Swap Hotkey be modified for engineers specifically for activating their specialization mechanics such as the Function Gyro and the upcoming Photon Forge. It would provide more control and quality of life to current and future mechanics. Engineers are probably never getting a secondary weapon set to swap to anyway so I don’t see an issue with assigning it other useful functions. I suppose elementalist may also benefit from this but I believe it would be most useful for engineers.

The weapon swap key already has a perfectly fine funtion.
It’s called “switch back from kit to weapon”.

Brtwrst.9312:

The weapon swap key already has a perfectly fine funtion.
It’s called “switch back from kit to weapon”.

That’s a universal function that all professions share. Not to mention it isn’t even necessary for engineer specifically because they always have other ways to drop their current kit without swap. Engineer builds are also beginning to be less reliant on kits, anyway. I’m just saying that this hotkey can fulfill much more purposes for the engineer (and maybe elementalist) compared to what it already does plus more for other professions.

for 1 second after using a kit this button is the only way to get back to your weapon.
Also you don’t have to find the key of the kit you are using to get back and its also the key for dropping bundles (ele weapons …)

At the moment nothing has changed with kits at all. And what we saw on the weekend is probably not final.
Also with the (buggy?) low damage of photon forge in PvE it might not even be viable.
When the expansion comes around some engis probably don’t want to give up ranged combat completely and still run grenades or mortar.

if such a key is needed at all it should be F6

Other professions have “kit-like” utilities, too; nowhere near engineer’s dependence on their kits, of course. The problem you proposed can be easily solved by what other professions already do: Simply replace the the usual weapon swap function with the drop function when carrying a bundle and then immediately revert back to its original function once the bundle dropped.

Not to mention, the 1 sec cd was only placed on kits later on in game as a quality of life for double tappers. Anet could easily add-in an option to have no kit cd like how it was at launch for the more skilled veterans of the game. These cool-down and finding the correct kit hotkey problems you proposed seems more like a L2P problem than an actual design issue.

It should stay as is. Since skills from the engi Rocket charge, Magnet, acid leap needs to be canceled sometimes. And that can only happen if we weapon swap. It doesn’t work just from pressing the kit.

Theonord.6359:

It should stay as is. Since skills from the engi Rocket charge, Magnet, acid leap needs to be canceled sometimes. And that can only happen if we weapon swap. It doesn’t work just from pressing the kit.

Read my last comment.

Novomundum.8325:

[…] Simply replace the the usual weapon swap function with the drop function when carrying a bundle […]

This way you could not use function gyro / forge when you use a bundle or kit and would always have to hit the button twice to drop first.
Also when you cancel skills (for example acid bomb) and you are in a situation where you don’t have constant 60fps and <30 ping then most of the time you have to mash the drop bundle key for it to register in time. With holosmith you could accidentally activate the forge if you mash the button when you don’t intend to.

So you rather sacrifice flexibilty of function (that other professions already have and are combating your listed issues perfectly fine) for people with bad computer setups and L2P problems?

You know which profession has a worse button mashing problem? The elementalist and anyone who complains about it gets blasted with “L2P noob”. A skilled engineer could easily just drop, activate special mechanic and return to kit smoothly since the kit only has a 1 sec cd. In addition to the fact that the 1 sec cd was made for noobs.

Bad fps, ping, and lag are all problems that everyone has to deal with not just engineers and it’s worse for professions that do have weapon swap mechanics and they have legitimate consequences because of weapon swap cd. But players blame their systems or geography, not the game. To sacrifice mechanical potential because of computer issues unrelated to the actual content of the game is just bad design.

Don’t change it. It’s useful for animation cancelling.

coro.3176:

Don’t change it. It’s useful for animation cancelling.

Read my comments please. That issue has been addressed.

You need to understand the change you propose simplifies some task but complicates others. Activating gyro with “swap key” in exchange for having to drop a kit/bundle first is not a real improvement.

Believe me, I don’t like losing an elite ToolBelt skill, and I certainly hate getting more and more inputs added to an originally very streamlined and well designed game (The “ancient magic” extra button is just awful to me).

But the “swap button” is already linked to very clear and logic actions, namely “droping” and “swapping” (And “cancelling”) things.

Which means it could NOT work for F-Gyro, but it COULD work for Photon Forge: engies only use the button to drop kits and bundles and PF is not compatible with kits, so if the button were used to enter PF in all moments except when you have a kit or bundle equipped, it wouldn’t be that bad. You’ll need to double tap to enter from a Kit into PF, though (release kit, activate PF).

Frankly, they should simply add the “profession mechanic” button as a bindable key, that way I would link it to “stow weapon” key or some other low-use key and be done with it.