Guild Wars 2

There once was a time when I thought Med kit was the best option for nearly every Engineer build, however with the recent upgrades to the class Healing Turret stands as the flat out strongest healing skill the class has, primarily due to it’s water fields. Water Fields that the engineer alone can blast, leap, and projectile in for massive healing, regeneration, and condition removal, not to mention all of his friends.

But this thread isn’t about Healing Turret and it’s pure awesomeness, but rather Med Kit. Med Kit, and it’s associated trait, seems as though it attempts to do the job of providing support healing, but can’t contend with the Healing Turret in that regard. My point being, why have two competing allied healing options?

What I’m getting at is a tweak to Med Kit’s trait “Packaged Stimulants” that instead of +25% healing, med packs grant boons where skill 1 grants regeneration, skill 2 grants protection, skill 3 grants aegis, antidote cures 1 extra condition for a total of 2, and Drop Stimulant also grants retaliation. This would provide excellent synergy with elixir gun support builds and no longer be competing for the “Best Healing” award we all know its not going to get.

This is not really a necessary fix or problem with the class and I would much prefer other things be addressed and fixed before this would even be on the table. This is just an idea to provide more skill and build diversity among the Engineers healing skills.

I’m all for giving the med kit a little boost since I use it for triggering runes of altruism, but protection and aegis are comparatively ‘rare’ boons. I don’t think you’ll see them on 12-second timers.

There was a detailed thread with charts a couple months ago that broke down the 3 engineer healing skills, with and without traits. The bottom line was that Healing Turret (post-patch) is the best team-healing tool, while MedKit is our best self-healing tool. Now, with the most recent buff to MedKit’s trait, this makes MedKit even stronger for self-healing. Of course, this is based on being able to use each skill to its fullest potential.

Increasing the heal amount of the medkits seems a unimaginative buff for the kit, considering its quirky design. I’m actually surprised they didn’t add RNG boons for each 1-3 kit. A 2nd condition on #4 would have been very nice. #5 is already really good, so I don’t think that necessarily needs to be touched.

Since Engi heals have a team-oriented feel, I wish the aforementioned boons were added to MedKit, making it more appealing to teammates to pick up.

As an aside, I think the kits need to be just a little more obvious when on the ground. Amidst overlapping particle effects they can easily get lost. Especially when ground-targeted and thrown at your melee allies.

Weirwynn.2390:

I’m all for giving the med kit a little boost since I use it for triggering runes of altruism, but protection and aegis are comparatively ‘rare’ boons. I don’t think you’ll see them on 12-second timers.

Well I know Guardians can produce Protection frequently (Hammer auto-attack #3 chain), and in every instance it’s the duration of the buff that provides the balance. The same could be said of Aegis. Perhaps them being rare boons will provide the incentive of obtaining this trait since as it stands I don’t care for the ability to ground target my med kit skills, and the bonus to health is overshadowed by just using Healing Turret to provide superior healing.

I only speak for myself in this, but I know of no reason to use Packaged Stimulants, nor justify taking it over more significant Master tier trait options at the present.

Does anyone out there actually use it? If so, why?

Obscure One.4357:

Well I know Guardians can produce Protection frequently (Hammer auto-attack #3 chain), and in every instance it’s the duration of the buff that provides the balance. The same could be said of Aegis. Perhaps them being rare boons will provide the incentive of obtaining this trait since as it stands I don’t care for the ability to ground target my med kit skills, and the bonus to health is overshadowed by just using Healing Turret to provide superior healing.

Guardian is the exception to the rule, yes. They have the lowest tier health and make up for it by having very good defensive skills. Meanwhile, some classes have no access at all to it, and most others only have it through random effects or traits. Mesmer, for instance, just lost its guaranteed protection on Chaos Armor (Staff 4).

Again, I’m not saying Med Kit doesn’t need a buff, but I don’t think protection or aegis are the right things for the job.

Weirwynn.2390:

Obscure One.4357:

Well I know Guardians can produce Protection frequently (Hammer auto-attack #3 chain), and in every instance it’s the duration of the buff that provides the balance. The same could be said of Aegis. Perhaps them being rare boons will provide the incentive of obtaining this trait since as it stands I don’t care for the ability to ground target my med kit skills, and the bonus to health is overshadowed by just using Healing Turret to provide superior healing.

Guardian is the exception to the rule, yes. They have the lowest tier health and make up for it by having very good defensive skills. Meanwhile, some classes have no access at all to it, and most others only have it through random effects or traits. Mesmer, for instance, just lost its guaranteed protection on Chaos Armor (Staff 4).

Again, I’m not saying Med Kit doesn’t need a buff, but I don’t think protection or aegis are the right things for the job.

Your points are valid, but as a counterpoint Engineers can actually spec into high amounts of protection between Protective Shield, Protection Injection, and Runes of the Forge, making them very potent with that boon in specific at the exact time they need it (criticality hit, disabled, and @ 50% health). In that acknowledgement however I see there would be an extra source of protection for Engineers that could be exploited if the varied sources of the boon aren’t appropriately balanced. Being able to indefinitely sustain 33% direct damage reduction is clearly nothing I’d want to see happen.

Perhaps making each pack randomly provide regeneration or vigor (in durations to balance them against Elixir H) would be a superiorly balanced option.