Guild Wars 2

The Revenant update made me realize something: Revenant skill types might actually be on the table for Engie’s Elite specialization. It’s just as possible as getting some kind of spin on signets, shouts or mantras or whatever, if we’re lifting something from another profession.

If we’re NOT getting signets, something like the upkeep skills that Revenant uses might be a possible alternative. The new class mechanic would be an energy bar but instead of mist energy it’s just good ’ol electricity. Deploying drones or other skills might drain electricity. The actual utility skills would be an on/off switch for the passive effect, and the toolbelt skill would be a burst skill that uses a chunk of the meter.

So possible examples of what upkeep skill style drones might look like:

Healing: medical drone
Heals per second while active, and clears one condition every 5 seconds.
Toolbelt heals about 3000 health and give 5 seconds of resistance.

Utility: Shield Drone
Active: Reflect projectiles (With a really heavy energy drain)
Toolbelt overcharges the shield, creating an electrified explosion, which breaks stun and AOE dazes up to 5 targets nearby. Maybe toss in a short lightning field.

Utility: Attack Drone
Active: Fires a Static Bolt every 3 seconds
Toolbelt refreshes the cooldowns on the currently equipped weapon, (including kits, but only the currently equipped one) which also counts as a weapon swap for the purposes of sigils. (To help strengthen no-kit engies, mainly)

Granted, if we DO get upkeep skills, they might not be the drones (Or the drones are collectively only one single upkeep skill that grants 3 drones) so we might get place-able objects with an upkeep cost or or some other type of effect.

As a mechanic, Electricity would be generated from movement (Lore-wise you could have generators on your limbs or something)and to give it a use if you don’t use the new utilities, it could perhaps change one skill from each weapon into a burst skill that uses it (Like Pistol #3 becomes a more powerful static beam instead of a shot but with an energy cost) or have it replace the toolbelt cooldown mechanic in general (Making the toolbelt more like thief weapon skills that use initiative)

Overall, it would give engineers some signet-like effects, but with a more active playstyle and resource management concerns.

I’ve been thinking about this kinda upkeep abilities too, but with heat instead of electricity (heat goes up to a cap and hurts if you do). But a problem I see with it is how powerfull it would be to run only one upkeep skill (lets say your healing drone) and fill the rest of the slots with normal engi skills, that way you have the whole bar to spend on upkeep/burst instead of having to divide it on each ability like the revenant does.

just one tiny question: this all sounds cool, but lets say they are signets. How would we know they are in a passive state? would the drones be following us constantly? I know you are not a dev just would like to hear your opinion XD

To easily identify what passives are active they could add a blinking effect or skill icon with high contrast when it is active, they can add a status boon Or/And then can add visual effects on the engineer (like floating drones). They could even add sound.

Upkeep skills sound interesting, so all we’d need is the energy-bar below our toolbelt, and we’d have some powerful options.

Still, all upkeep skills on revenant seem to have a aoe-component, so here are my suggestions:

Our class-mechanic will be a mobile power-generator that supports attachable gizmos (utilities , elite, healing skills), still it has a limited output of power per second, so active gizmos drain the energy-supply and eventually shut down or simply can’t be activated in the first place

-medical drones (healing skill)
active: aoe-heals every second on up to 5 allies. (medium power-drain)
TB: heals you for 4k / clears 3 conditions (takes 20% energy) (25sec cd)

- Spotter Goggles (utility)
active: pulses reveal and blind (high power drain)
TB: applies reveal on the current target, grants 5 stacks of might and fury for 10 seconds to you, breaks stun (takes 20% energy) (40sec cd)

- Gravitational Stabilizer (utility)
active: pulses 1 stack of stability and protection on up to 5 allies (medium power drain)
TB: grants aegis and resistance for 5 seconds, breaks stun (takes 20% energy) (40sec cd)

- Shock Coil (utility)
active: pulses cripple and weakness / deals medium aoe-dmg. lightfield (low power drain)
TB: sends out a conic, moving shockwave that stuns every opponent it touches for 1.5 seconds. 600 range (takes 40% energy) (60sec cd)

- Improved Generator Vent (utility)
active: pulses burning and Poison /deals low dmg / poison field (it has to, else you could stealth-stack condis) (low power drain)
TB: releases excess heat from the engineers power-armor in from of hot gas, that applies poison, blind and pushes back / smokefield (takes 20% energy) (30sec cd)

- Adrenalin-Aerosol dispenser (utility)
active: Pulses swiftness, vigor and might for up to 5 allies (swiftness should have increased duration, so it lasts roughly 2 times as long as the upkeep was active) (medium power drain)
TB: applies 6sec quickness (takes 40% energy)

- Defense Perimeter 3000 (elite)
Active: Creates a player-centric bubble that reflects projectiles / lightfield (high power drain)
TB: Creates a player-centric rezz-field that heals players in downstate for 17% per second and clears 1 condition per second. lasts 6 seconds (takes 60% energy) (120sec cd)

Seems plausible. Signets have been brought up a lot, but the only real argument was that Engis are the only class that don’t have them. Since Revenants are a thing and Signets don’t really work with them, as their slot skills are tied to a legend, there’s bound to be at least one profession without Signets after HoT, which brings us back to square one.

The only exception would be if Engis do indeed get Signets and Revenants get 3 utilities per legend plus 5 Signets compatible with all legends.

The leaked hammer skills had a heat mechanic tied to them. It’s possible that this was meant to be similar to Revenant’s energy bar, so that weapon skills build up heat that is used to fuel utilities, including perhaps Upkeeps. In any case, Upkeeps seem to suffer from the same problem as Signets, in that they are too passive.

Are.1326:

But a problem I see with it is how powerfull it would be to run only one upkeep skill (lets say your healing drone) and fill the rest of the slots with normal engi skills, that way you have the whole bar to spend on upkeep/burst instead of having to divide it on each ability like the revenant does.

I thought about that and I was actually thinking it was more of a problem from the other direction, rather than only having one be too strong, that having all of them would be way too weak. I was honestly assuming most players would only have one or two anyways, because I have a really hard time imagining good engie builds that don’t use any kits. Any utility simply has to be nearly overpowered to be worth it over a kit most of the time.

I suppose one way around the issue would be perhaps making it so adding an upkeep skill increases your energy cap. So if you only have one, you’d have a really low cap, which limits your spamming ability, but if you take 3-4 of them you have a high enough cap to actually use multiples. If you choose to take 3-4 but just use the extra energy to spam one of the skills, that balances itself by the opportunity cost of what could have been in the other skill slots. Also, that could make it so having NO upkeep skill gets rid of the energy bar entirely, solving the issue of what to do with energy in a no-upkeep build.

Another possible idea: If Engineer is the class getting the break bar (My money is on the Elementalist getting the break bar, though) then the upkeep skills could drain that instead. Say the Engie has a shield as a passive mechanic, and using upkeep skills drains the energy the shield needs, making the choice to activate an upkeep more of a sacrifice.

eduardo.1436:

just one tiny question: this all sounds cool, but lets say they are signets. How would we know they are in a passive state? would the drones be following us constantly? I know you are not a dev just would like to hear your opinion XD

If the Drones are upkeeps, I just figured the drone itself is the tell. It’d only be out (and visible) if it’s on.

RabbitUp.8294:

Seems plausible. Signets have been brought up a lot, but the only real argument was that Engis are the only class that don’t have them. Since Revenants are a thing and Signets don’t really work with them, as their slot skills are tied to a legend, there’s bound to be at least one profession without Signets after HoT, which brings us back to square one.

The only exception would be if Engis do indeed get Signets and Revenants get 3 utilities per legend plus 5 Signets compatible with all legends.

The leaked hammer skills had a heat mechanic tied to them. It’s possible that this was meant to be similar to Revenant’s energy bar, so that weapon skills build up heat that is used to fuel utilities, including perhaps Upkeeps. In any case, Upkeeps seem to suffer from the same problem as Signets, in that they are too passive.

If the hammer itself has a heat mechanic, I wouldn’t want utilities using it, because that would then force using the hammer. If using ANY weapon generated heat, then it could work. All the elite specs are optimized for their new weapons, but it’s still an optional choice.

Revenant also seems to have no signets, from what I can tell. Two classes having upkeeps in place of signets makes sense to me (Just as classes which have alternate mechanics to weapon swaps) but there’s a chance that each legend could have a signet assuming the skill bar of each legend is customizable. We’ll see, I guess.

As for signets/Upkeeps being too passive, that’s certainly solid reasoning for why you wouldn’t want them, but it is irrelevant to whether or not they might get implemented. Actually, engie having some of the most active skills in general (aside from turrets, and even then overcharging and toolbelt skills add active elements) a few passive skills actually wouldn’t hurt too much.

And actually, I’m picturing upkeeps as being VERY active. I’m thinking the energy costs of most of them would be way too prohibitive to just keep on. (I’m thinking like 3-10 second stints of keeping them on, tops) so you’d constantly need to flip them on and off depending on your situation or as part of your rotation. In exchange, thier passives would be much more powerful than signets, since those stay on constantly.

It also solves the OTHER problem signets have, in that what the heck do you do with a signet toolbelt skill. You’d basically have the passive effect for free because the active skill would BE the toolbelt and it wouldn’t put the signet itself on cd.

I hit the character limit with all the responses I was writing, so Double Post time!

Arantheal.7396:

Our class-mechanic will be a mobile power-generator that supports attachable gizmos (utilities , elite, healing skills), still it has a limited output of power per second, so active gizmos drain the energy-supply and eventually shut down or simply can’t be activated in the first place

Overall an interesting concept for a potential new specialization, though it sounds like it could potentially suffer from many of the same issues as turrets. It’d severely limit your mobility, making it very weak when you need to roam in open world PvE and WvW, and overpowered to straight-up cheap when staying put, like in Conquest PvP or maybe PvE bosses. If the generator was easy to move around that might mitigate the mobility issue.

Maybe if the generator was a golem (And you have to manage it’s powersource) and the profession was “Golemancer” Then giving it commands could be your second “Weapon set” on the weapon swap command.(Like a remote control kit?) Utilities could be optional skills and upgrades for the bot, or personal gadgets that siphon it’s power for your own use. It’d be almost like a pet, except with intentionally braindead AI forcing you to manually order all of it’s attacks. Unlike a pet, you’e have to do a massive amount of juggling to keep up both your own attack rotation and the Golems, hopefully offsetting some of the complaints about AI-based builds you get with turrets. So I guess to put it another way, it’d be more of a puppet than a pet.

Pretty much all of those skills you came up with could be used as the golem’s skills in that case.

In no word I intended this generator to be a turret-like npc on the field.
All I gave is a lore-fitting description for getting a energy-bar that regenerates automatically and depletes fast if we activate upkeep skills.

I apologize if my initial post confused you, but like with all other classes, class-mechanics that center around AI are doomed to become a big hindrance.

There would be a problem with giving the elite spec an energy mechanic that tied to the new skills – what if you didn’t use any of those utility skills? Would the energy be useless? None of the other elite specs require the new utility skills to be used. I would really enjoy an energy type mechanic, but it sounds tricky to fully integrate into the class.

One option would be to alter all TB skills to have drastically reduced cd’s, but need energy in turn, if we take this elite spec. Maybe the same could be done for our weapon-skills.

And if our skills are activated while the energy threshold was too low, they go on a regular cd. The balance will be that we can’t maintain our upkeep skills if we spam other skills, so smart energy-management is required if we don’t want to loose our advantage.

Arantheal.7396:

One option would be to alter all TB skills to have drastically reduced cd’s, but need energy in turn, if we take this elite spec. Maybe the same could be done for our weapon-skills.

And if our skills are activated while the energy threshold was too low, they go on a regular cd. The balance will be that we can’t maintain our upkeep skills if we spam other skills, so smart energy-management is required if we don’t want to loose our advantage.

I would really enjoy this system. But it sounds really tricky to balance. I think each toolbelt skill would have to be adjusted individually (converting from cooldown to energy) rather than simply applying a formula, for example (e.g. energy cost = original cooldown *0.8). While this could work, it would be a huge re-balancing issue, it would be very unintuitive, and trying to write a tooltip that would adequately describe it (for transparency) would be almost impossible.

That said, I can’t at this point estimate how ANet will change engi’s profession mechanic for the elite spec, so I look forward to hearing more about it.