Guild Wars 2

Well to late to change anything about current Elite Spec but all these talk got me think that maybe Engi may want to have a Weapon Skill Swap Elite Specialization next. However, in exchange for this Engi’s Elite Spec giving all weapons a extra set of skills…

Rifle get 5 new set of skills making it now have 10 skills

Pistol get 5 new set of skills making it have 10 skills ( 6 main hand and 4 off-hand).

Shield get 2 new skills making it have 4 skills

and new Elite Spec Weapon with its own set of weapon skills

along with the Elite Spec new set of skills as well.

…. Kits are changed into normal Utility skills that reflect their former Kit function.

What will happen to the kit traits? Well this is the 2nd part of this Elite Spec mechanic being that the weapons Engi can use are now considered Kits while the Traits that affect only specific Kits will still affect the skills the Kits are turned into or adjusted to affect the weapon you wield.

1) Instead of Swapping Weapons, this Elite Specialization will swap the weapon skills.

2) Each Weapon Engineer can use, Pistol, Shield, Rifle, and Elite Spec Weapon, now have 2 sets of skills with one set being melee range combat and 2nd set as long range combat.
For example..

Rifle 2nd set of skill, when you swap the weapon skill, focus on melee range shots with the Auto attack being a cone shape short range AoE attack with this auto attack being considered as a Melee attack so it can’t be reflected. Turning the Rifle into a Shotgun type weapon.

3) Kits are changed into new skills that reflect the kit’s former function. Such as Grenade Kit becomes a simple Grenade Utility skill that allows this Engi Elite Spec to through 9 grenades, 3 Shrapnel, 3 freeze, and 3 Poison Grenades.

Flamethrower kit becomes a Utility skill that does a ground target AoE field skill that creates a Napalm AoE circle field that damages and cause burn condition every 1 second to all enemies in the area.

Elixir Kit becomes Experimental Super Elixir which leaves a field larger sized Super Elixir field but with a stronger pulse heal and a addition effect of providing 3 second of Protection each pulse.

….so basically attunements on acid? I like it

I like this. Instead of getting a whole new set of utilities you just re-purpose Kits (while staying on theme), and add a “Weapon Swap”. I would almost argue that this Elite Spec shouldn’t get a new weapon since all base Engi weapons would be getting a second set of abilities.

Basaltface.2786:

….so basically attunements on acid? I like it

meh… either way it may work but the effort to create 5 new set of skills for each Engi’s weapons and the new Elite Spec Weapon, new utility skills to take the Kits skills place when this Elite Spec is equiped, and new set of skills for this new elite spec may require more work than current Elite Specializations while still making sure the weapons are registering as Kits with the Elite Spec equipped.

Not to mention if the Weapon Skill Swap system will be the only thing added as well or not since the Elite Spec only gives 1 set of new skills per weapon their may be another mechanic to add additional weapon skills such as if this Elite spec gets its own form of Reaper Shoud but instead of having unique skills to this “RS” form this “Engi RS” transforms the weapon skills into a type of Overcharge versions of the Weapon skills instead with some slight animation change to the skill showing it is the Overcharge version of the skill.

Or something simpler like giving each weapon their own Overcharge Skills for the Overcharge Form.

(lightning animation effect around the body with lightning glowing eyes may or may not be included. )

Also current elite specs have taken things from other professions and incorporated into another profession but with its own unique twist, being Druid’s Celestial form as a healer focused Reaper Shroud along with Utility Skill types like the wells for chronomancer and Shouts for Ele and Necro. If that is anything to say we may see future elite specializations performing such things as well with other profession’s mechanics that wouldn’t require much or no change to their standard mechanic such as Engi’s toolbelt skill and Warrior’s Rage bar.

This is almost exactly what I wanted them to do.

Seemed like a pretty obvious place to take the class and a logical thing to give to people troubled by the—well advertised—reliance on kits.

That said, this would still be a little short of flavor.

lorddarkflare.9186:

This is almost exactly what I wanted them to do.

Seemed like a pretty obvious place to take the class and a logical thing to give to people troubled by the—well advertised—reliance on kits.

That said, this would still be a little short of flavor.

Ya I know but I only started on the basic of what this Elite Spec may use. I didn’t think too far into this Elite Spec to start expecting any type of unique flavor quite yet.

I edited my second post to include the idea of a Engi’s own Reaper Shoud for this Elite Spec but instead of Unique skills for the Engi’s RS this Engi’s RS will change the Weapon skills instead to a type of Overcharge version of the Weapon skills or unique Overcharge skills for each Engi Weapon.

(I was thinking of calling it Overcharge Form or Mode but meh the naming can go to Anet’s job if they ever plan to add something like this)

EdwinLi.1284:

lorddarkflare.9186:

This is almost exactly what I wanted them to do.

Seemed like a pretty obvious place to take the class and a logical thing to give to people troubled by the—well advertised—reliance on kits.

That said, this would still be a little short of flavor.

Ya I know but I only started on the basic of what this Elite Spec may use. I didn’t think too far into this Elite Spec to start expecting any type of unique flavor quite yet.

I edited my second post to include the idea of a Engi’s own Reaper Shoud for this Elite Spec but instead of Unique skills for the Engi’s RS this Engi’s RS will change the Weapon skills instead to a type of Overcharge version of the Weapon skills.

(I was thinking of calling it Overcharge Form or Mode but meh the naming can go to Anet’s job if they ever plan to add something like this)

I have also toyed with the idea of getting a form, but I think our class already has a glut of mechanics that swap out our skills. It would be nice to get something shiny that does not do this.

lorddarkflare.9186:

I have also toyed with the idea of getting a form, but I think our class already has a glut of mechanics that swap out our skills. It would be nice to get something shiny that does not do this.

Well if they plan to make a weapon skill swap focused Elite Spec for Engi Anet might as well go all the way and introduce a unique Death Shroud for Engi that has the skills affected by what weapon the Engi has equipped.

That way they can keep the theme of being a Weapon Skill Swap Elite Spec.

All the other utilities would still be balanced over kits – as per the worst case of having many of them at the same time. And even the base weapon skills would still be balanced over normal kits.

Essentially, it wouldn’t solve anything at all.
And anything short of rebalancing the base class to be not dependant on kits won’t suffice, anyway.

Personally, I don’t like the idea of a Spec that changes our core skills and traits. Not to forget the mess you end up with when redesigning the traits, juggernaut would not work if you removed the kit side of flamethrower.

Since new Elite specs come with new skills, why not just use them instead. Changing kits would be such a huge change from the core engineer you might as well do it on another proffesion. If it is done just to make the new mechanic look good in comparison, then nobody would pick the elite spec in the first place.

Instead of swapping out every skill on your weapons, just have it change the Auto Attack. No need to change kits and traits or create 17 new weapon skills in addition to the new weapon.

lorddarkflare.9186:

I have also toyed with the idea of getting a form, but I think our class already has a glut of mechanics that swap out our skills. It would be nice to get something shiny that does not do this.

That is the problem, isn’kitten

• A new form/kit-like mechanic adds to many skills to a class that is already flooded by skills. Not to forget that there are no buttons to map it to.
• A passive mechanic would be to good of a buff or to bad to care for, and the forum have voiced their hate for passive gameplay quite often.
• Replacing our current class mechanic (toolbelt) won’t work since many existing utility skills are dependant on their toolbelt (like med-kit, turrets, etc).
• Changing every toolbelt skill would be to much work, especially if we expect that from every new elite spec.
• Adding a resource (like Heat of Fuel) would still require a method of spending it and we still lack any spare keys to active it with. We can’t expect the players to slot utilities for that since the mechanic must be able to stand on it’s own feet without depending on a specific weapon/utility skills.

Also don’t suggest adding an F6 key, we already have way to many keys to take care of. Having a mouse with 6+ buttons should not be a requirement to play engineer.

When I heard that elite specs would change the class mechanic I expected them to hit this design wall at some point, but not at the first batch of elite specs. It kinda breaks any hope for a decent Elite spec in the future.

Quite honestly, the Function Gyro was pretty inspired considering some of the limitations they have.

I just wished they’d done something interesting with it.

Like, in addition to being summonable on downed foes, we could also summon it on CC’d foes as well. From there, it would have different, stronger abilities based on traits, type of CC, etc.

lorddarkflare.9186:

Quite honestly, the Function Gyro was pretty inspired considering some of the limitations they have.

I just wished they’d done something interesting with it.

Like, in addition to being summonable on downed foes, we could also summon it on CC’d foes as well. From there, it would have different, stronger abilities based on traits, type of CC, etc.

Having an Function interaction with players would get in the way quite often. It’s already messy with how we pick up turrets.

I think enhancing the existing F functions are fine (revive, stomp, loot, interact with NPCs, channel, pick up bundles, press a button or flip a lever, etc), but they can’t all share the same cooldown. Personally I think they should make the gyro spawn on you and fly to the target, reactivating it while the gyro is alive commands it to your new target, activating it while your gyro is dead summons a new one. No more cooldown.

I would like to see a ranged dominant spec for the next elite spec. or at least the possiblity to fight good at medium to long range
Seeing as we dont have that yet. Most of our weapons are in between melee and medium range or melee range dominant.

Although I like your weapon skill swap idea, there are some parts where I disagree.
You want the weapons to have a melee and a ranged combat version.
You want a melee second skill set for Rifle, however Rifle is already melee dominant shotgun style. The strongest attacks are in melee range already.
So the second skill set for the weapons, should be ranged dominant imo. Seeing as engineers their weapons often have their strongest attacks around melee range already.

lorddarkflare.9186:

Quite honestly, the Function Gyro was pretty inspired considering some of the limitations they have.

I just wished they’d done something interesting with it.

Like, in addition to being summonable on downed foes, we could also summon it on CC’d foes as well. From there, it would have different, stronger abilities based on traits, type of CC, etc.

That would be nice. To be able to summon it for more uses than downed foes/teammates.