Guild Wars 2

Just muddling over the seemingly age-old debate of Engineers getting or not getting weapon swap capability, and this thought occurred to me.

What if we got our alternate weapon swaps as equippable utility skills? Treat each weapon as the same rarity and level as the equipped main with the same sigil setup, primary (equipped) weapon deactivated by default.
This would, of course, add four new ‘skills’ to the engineer:
-Backup Rifle
-Backup Hammer
-Back up Pistols
-Backup Shield (pistol equipped for main hand, of course)

Just wanted to get this idea out there and on paper, so to speak, before I went to work.

That would provide the same burden as the current setup. They want to have a weapon swap without it affecting their utility skills.

scrapper should get weapon swap end of story. As great as hammer is, you HAVE to take kits for range when you use it. Lucky kits are good and we’ve been forced to use them for 3 years anyway, but no utilities should be mandatory

If you do that no one will ever use gyros, turrets or gadgets, we need more funcionality on gyros, turrets and gadget.

Anet need to see the need of usefull turrets, gyros or gadgets, often a kit is simply better than any gadget or turret, this should not be so.

I would make another suggestions.

Give us a weaponswap as every other class, but let us only equip one kit into it, no weapon.

Azure.8670:

scrapper should get weapon swap end of story. As great as hammer is, you HAVE to take kits for range when you use it. Lucky kits are good and we’ve been forced to use them for 3 years anyway, but no utilities should be mandatory

If that occurred then non scrappers would never get weapons swap.

Weapon swap should just be given to the base engineer and the whole class shouldn’t be balanced over kits.
Our class mechanic is the toolbelt. Not kits. Remake them into something whose balance doesn’t screw the rest of the class and if possible put them as they work now in an elite specialization, so that such a specialization can properly be balanced separatedly instead of dictating how the whole class works.

Allow weapon swap if an engineer has no kits equipped

GG

Manuhell.2759:

Weapon swap should just be given to the base engineer and the whole class shouldn’t be balanced over kits.

How is balancing with weapon swap any better than kits? You just end up with the same situation, forcing players to run two weapon sets and swapping between them is almost worst than kits since I now HAVE to slot another weapon. Just giving engineers weapon swap would make more of a mess than we currently have, players would still have to run 4 kits to max out dmg, the rotations would just hit 60+ steps.

When compearing Engineer to more basic classes like, lets say Warrior, you get the following setups:

• Warrior may run one ranged weapon and one melee weapon, both designed around the existance of the other, excelling in their role but lacking in the other.

• Engineer have one general use weapon that works well in both melee and range, and can equip a variety of kits for more specialized roles and situations.

This difference in playstyle is what makes engineer unique. It is why I fell for this class in the first place. If they want to make les kits more viable, then the solution is to move power from the kit skills over to the weapon sets, not to make us into other classes. Or to buff non-kit skills so they stand up against their kit counterparts.

Are.1326:

How is balancing with weapon swap any better than kits? You just end up with the same situation, forcing players to run two weapon sets and swapping between them is almost worst than kits since I now HAVE to slot another weapon. Just giving engineers weapon swap would make more of a mess than we currently have, players would still have to run 4 kits to max out dmg, the rotations would just hit 60+ steps.

Because weapon slots have no other purpose that using weapons, and that’s what makes it far better and easier to balance.
You mention having 4 kits to max out damage. Yeah, the problem is, they had to balance all the class over that worst case to that having 4 kits didn’t become overpowered.

Are.1326:

When compearing Engineer to more basic classes like, lets say Warrior, you get the following setups:

• Warrior may run one ranged weapon and one melee weapon, both designed around the existance of the other, excelling in their role but lacking in the other.

• Engineer have one general use weapon that works well in both melee and range, and can equip a variety of kits for more specialized roles and situations.

We stopped having general use weapons when hammers were introduced.
But aside from that, kits are far more general use weapons than the main weapon themselves. So much that even their autoattacks are often preferred to the ones of the main weapons.
And our main weapons are balanced over the existence of kits, anyway. We know that from the balance philosophies since the launch. That’s why they’re essentially mandatory.

Are.1326:

This difference in playstyle is what makes engineer unique. It is why I fell for this class in the first place. If they want to make les kits more viable, then the solution is to move power from the kit skills over to the weapon sets, not to make us into other classes. Or to buff non-kit skills so they stand up against their kit counterparts.

Except that they can’t do that. Making weapons stronger would just make a full kit build stronger. Making other utilities stronger would just make an almost full kit build stronger. Even if you try to shift the balance between them.
You can’t balance over having a single weapon and five at the same time. The differences are too extreme.
And that’s why we have all these issues.

We have the issues—mostly in PvE—because our hard hitting skills are spread around between kits.

Are’s suggestion is NOT just buffing weapons, but moving the most of the damage away from kits. There is a difference.

If most kits were allowed to me MUCH more specialized, than this problem would mostly go away.

We do not have to essentially rebuild the class to fix it.

It doesn’t change the issues at all.
What do you think would happen?
The damage has still to be put somewhere. It would only end up even more easily accessible than before.
Make a couple of highly damaging kits, and we end up cycling between those skills freely while still having slots for other useful utilities.
Put it in a single main weapon, and we have both a ton of damage and specialized weapons for anything else we may need and maybe even a slot for some other particular use.
And we would still lack a way to use “on swap” sigils when not using kits anyway.

We have just far too many differences between our best and worst cases.
Again, a class can’t be balanced over having a single weapon and 5 freely available at the same time. It just isn’t feasible.

And your suggestions removes the soul of the class.

One thing I really dislike about the Scrapper is that it did not choose to address this ridiculously obvious issue.

Would haven a really nice way to preserve the base class whilst giving kit-less people what they want.

The “soul of the class”, you say? Guess many would rather not have a soul at all.
Maybe the “soul of the class” shouldn’t be an optional type of utilities, then.
Given that we’re the only class that gets such a forced drawback for something that we may not even choose to get.
Changing weapon sets is the “soul” of elementalists by the way, not engineers. We have toolbelts instead. But many people just seem to forget it.

Manuhell.2759:

The “soul of the class”, you say? Guess many would rather not have a soul at all.
Maybe the “soul of the class” shouldn’t be an optional type of utilities, then.
Given that we’re the only class that gets such a forced drawback for something that we may not even choose to get.
Changing weapon sets is the “soul” of elementalists by the way, not engineers. We have toolbelts instead. But many people just seem to forget it.

People have secondary mechanics. Mesmers use shatter but they also must use and work with illusions. A mesmer build that doesn’t summon Illusions is just as limited as an engie not equipping one kit.

With a single kit an engie has more skills than thieves, rangers, warriors, guardians. Add another they surpass mesmers, necromancers and revenants. Add a third they surpass elementalists. Conjured weapons and banners don’t touch this, they cause the reverse effect in terms of enhancing utility, there are no 4 banner or 4 conjure builds.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Azure.8670:

scrapper should get weapon swap end of story. As great as hammer is, you HAVE to take kits for range when you use it. Lucky kits are good and we’ve been forced to use them for 3 years anyway, but no utilities should be mandatory

If that occurred then non scrappers would never get weapons swap.

and??

thats the point. you can give baseline engi weapon swap if you want, doesnt matter, but the opton of rifle/ pistol doesnt exactly scream we need this

Azure.8670:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Azure.8670:

scrapper should get weapon swap end of story. As great as hammer is, you HAVE to take kits for range when you use it. Lucky kits are good and we’ve been forced to use them for 3 years anyway, but no utilities should be mandatory

If that occurred then non scrappers would never get weapons swap.

and??

thats the point. you can give baseline engi weapon swap if you want, doesnt matter, but the opton of rifle/ pistol doesnt exactly scream we need this

Then it wouldn’t solve the problem of not having a default ability to activate weapon swap sigil. It would be like discovering the cure for cancer but making it cost 1 million dollars. Whats the point of fixing something if you make the fix select.

Daniel Handler.4816:

People have secondary mechanics. Mesmers use shatter but they also must use and work with illusions. A mesmer build that doesn’t summon Illusions is just as limited as an engie not equipping one kit.

Yep, that’s why every single weapon the mesmer can equip can generate illusions.
And thus makes sense to balance the class over it – the instruments are always provided to the class, one way or another.
But engineers don’t get kits from weapons and neither have separate kit slots that would make so that there are always kits available.
No, they use up utility slots that other utilities could use as well. They’re optional, and as such should be balanced.

With a single kit an engie has more skills than thieves, rangers, warriors, guardians. Add another they surpass mesmers, necromancers and revenants. Add a third they surpass elementalists. Conjured weapons and banners don’t touch this, they cause the reverse effect in terms of enhancing utility, there are no 4 banner or 4 conjure builds.

If anything, this is exactly why there are issues.
How can you expect them to balance a class that is able to have the least and the most amount of skills of any class and is able to freely access all of them at any time?
At most, what they can do is to balance for the worst case – multiple weapons, so that they won’t be op. Obviously, that makes the single weapon case very weak.

If they gave us weapon swap you can guarantee the they would put kits on a 30 second or more cooldown. No thanks i would rather have kits the way they are than swap.

No thanks. This is not a “middle ground” suggestion, as the title suggest. It is a full weapon swap concept, on top of having kits. If I want that, I will play another profession. With a weapon swap option, the kit functionally becomes too strong with the weapons functionality. That means they will likely decide to to e something back. This means they may desire to change the near instant kit swap. I have no desire to rink that.

In my opinion, you should embrace the kit functionally, or play a different profession. If you do not like the functionality, I see no reason to ruin it for those of us who do.

It would have been a different story if the developers added a new kit in this expansion, but instead they invested company resources to create a new line of non-kit related skills. We now have elixirs, gadgets, turrets, and gyros to chose from on a very limited skill bar. Opening up dual primary weapons for non-kit builds would help to wedge engineers to try other builds without significantly impacting combat performance and survivability. I for one would welcome a Hammer & Rifle combination, mixed with gyros and even turrets. I’d get more value out of the game too since I’m no longer locked down to kit requirements.

In any case, I’m sure this topic crossed the developers’ minds numerous times both before and after release of GW2. They have their reasons for not doing it, so it’s not something I’m going to hold my breath on. Gyros, like gadgets, turrets, and some elixirs, are just gimmicks to me. Without any changes to encourage build diversity, my standard loadout will continue to reign.

Manuhell.2759:

Daniel Handler.4816:

People have secondary mechanics. Mesmers use shatter but they also must use and work with illusions. A mesmer build that doesn’t summon Illusions is just as limited as an engie not equipping one kit.

Yep, that’s why every single weapon the mesmer can equip can generate illusions.
And thus makes sense to balance the class over it – the instruments are always provided to the class, one way or another.
But engineers don’t get kits from weapons and neither have separate kit slots that would make so that there are always kits available.
No, they use up utility slots that other utilities could use as well. They’re optional, and as such should be balanced.

With a single kit an engie has more skills than thieves, rangers, warriors, guardians. Add another they surpass mesmers, necromancers and revenants. Add a third they surpass elementalists. Conjured weapons and banners don’t touch this, they cause the reverse effect in terms of enhancing utility, there are no 4 banner or 4 conjure builds.

If anything, this is exactly why there are issues.
How can you expect them to balance a class that is able to have the least and the most amount of skills of any class and is able to freely access all of them at any time?
At most, what they can do is to balance for the worst case – multiple weapons, so that they won’t be op. Obviously, that makes the single weapon case very weak.

Yes and that is why every utility slot gives you a toolbelt skill. Just as every weapon allows mesmers to summon Illusions.

Even at your lowest amount you have access to 15 skills on demand. All other professions besides chronomancer do not have access to that many on demand.

For example a thief has access to 11 skills at a time and they require a weapon swap to access the other 5.

That is just how the classes works. Kits give you access to two weapons and the payment is a utility slot. The balance is there, you just don’t like it.

I see no problem with giving kitless builds a way to proc weapon swap sigils, but I don’t think you should get a true weapon swap. It would simply mess up too much of the class.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Yes and that is why every utility slot gives you a toolbelt skill. Just as every weapon allows mesmers to summon Illusions.

Quite a poor comparison. The equivalent for mesmers would be shatter skills, not the illusions they get on weapons. Obviously, they do get them because they’re necessary for shatters to work properly.
And other classes get F-skills as well, anyway. Guardians have three signet-like skills, for example. While still having a second weapon set.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Even at your lowest amount you have access to 15 skills on demand. All other professions besides chronomancer do not have access to that many on demand.

For example a thief has access to 11 skills at a time and they require a weapon swap to access the other 5.

Five of which – the weapon skills – are weakened on purpose due to kits, as we know from the balance philosophies.
And toolbelt cooldowns aren’t usually comparable to weapon skills’ ones even when the effects aren’t exactly amazing. So merely reducing it as an amount of skill available at any time isn’t a fair comparison.

Daniel Handler.4816:

That is just how the classes works. Kits give you access to two weapons and the payment is a utility slot. The balance is there, you just don’t like it.

And it works quite badly. They ended up having to balance weapons and utilities over theoretical full kit builds because of how overpowered they could become otherwise (and screwing the builds with few-to-no-kits in doing so) – they even had to balance individual kits over their traited versions until the specialization update (grenade kit says hello). And making it the only class that needs a particular utility type to even process on swap sigils.
The only class that gets fixed drawbacks due to the mere possibility of using a particular utility type, heh.
If warriors got decreased stats because they can use banners to raise them, people would laugh. Engineers having no second weapon slot because of kits instead is treated as normal. Heh.

I see no problem with giving kitless builds a way to proc weapon swap sigils, but I don’t think you should get a true weapon swap. It would simply mess up too much of the class.

As if the class isn’t messed up already, right?
Even if we had such a thing, weapons and utilities would still be balanced over kits. So nothing would change.

Manuhell.2759:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Yes and that is why every utility slot gives you a toolbelt skill. Just as every weapon allows mesmers to summon Illusions.

Quite a poor comparison. The equivalent for mesmers would be shatter skills, not the illusions they get on weapons. Obviously, they do get them because they’re necessary for shatters to work properly.
And other classes get F-skills as well, anyway. Guardians have three signet-like skills, for example. While still having a second weapon set.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Even at your lowest amount you have access to 15 skills on demand. All other professions besides chronomancer do not have access to that many on demand.

For example a thief has access to 11 skills at a time and they require a weapon swap to access the other 5.

Five of which – the weapon skills – are weakened on purpose due to kits, as we know from the balance philosophies.
And toolbelt cooldowns aren’t usually comparable to weapon skills’ ones even when the effects aren’t exactly amazing. So merely reducing it as an amount of skill available at any time isn’t a fair comparison.

Daniel Handler.4816:

That is just how the classes works. Kits give you access to two weapons and the payment is a utility slot. The balance is there, you just don’t like it.

And it works quite badly. They ended up having to balance weapons and utilities over theoretical full kit builds because of how overpowered they could become otherwise (and screwing the builds with few-to-no-kits in doing so) – they even had to balance individual kits over their traited versions until the specialization update (grenade kit says hello). And making it the only class that needs a particular utility type to even process on swap sigils.
The only class that gets fixed drawbacks due to the mere possibility of using a particular utility type, heh.
If warriors got decreased stats because they can use banners to raise them, people would laugh. Engineers having no second weapon slot because of kits instead is treated as normal. Heh.

I see no problem with giving kitless builds a way to proc weapon swap sigils, but I don’t think you should get a true weapon swap. It would simply mess up too much of the class.

As if the class isn’t messed up already, right?
Even if we had such a thing, weapons and utilities would still be balanced over kits. So nothing would change.

I don’t know how to help you. This is class design. Engie is built around around having access to all their skills at once. And having at least one kit. Thief is built around having no cooldown on weapons. Necro is built around having death shroud to subvert the 10 second cooldown on weapon swap. Ele don’t get an additional skill to make up for taking conjured weapons. Neither do warriors for banners.

If you want fixed drawbacks for skill types look at the necromancer corruptions.

If you don’t like my explanation then look at the other commenters in this thread.

It simply isn’t possible to give a true weapon swap without completely reworking the class. All weapons would have to be altered in strength. The toolbelt skills would have to be altered in strength. The kits would have to be altered in strength. Cooldown on kit swaps would be added.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Manuhell.2759:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Yes and that is why every utility slot gives you a toolbelt skill. Just as every weapon allows mesmers to summon Illusions.

Quite a poor comparison. The equivalent for mesmers would be shatter skills, not the illusions they get on weapons. Obviously, they do get them because they’re necessary for shatters to work properly.
And other classes get F-skills as well, anyway. Guardians have three signet-like skills, for example. While still having a second weapon set.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Even at your lowest amount you have access to 15 skills on demand. All other professions besides chronomancer do not have access to that many on demand.

For example a thief has access to 11 skills at a time and they require a weapon swap to access the other 5.

Five of which – the weapon skills – are weakened on purpose due to kits, as we know from the balance philosophies.
And toolbelt cooldowns aren’t usually comparable to weapon skills’ ones even when the effects aren’t exactly amazing. So merely reducing it as an amount of skill available at any time isn’t a fair comparison.

Daniel Handler.4816:

That is just how the classes works. Kits give you access to two weapons and the payment is a utility slot. The balance is there, you just don’t like it.

And it works quite badly. They ended up having to balance weapons and utilities over theoretical full kit builds because of how overpowered they could become otherwise (and screwing the builds with few-to-no-kits in doing so) – they even had to balance individual kits over their traited versions until the specialization update (grenade kit says hello). And making it the only class that needs a particular utility type to even process on swap sigils.
The only class that gets fixed drawbacks due to the mere possibility of using a particular utility type, heh.
If warriors got decreased stats because they can use banners to raise them, people would laugh. Engineers having no second weapon slot because of kits instead is treated as normal. Heh.

I see no problem with giving kitless builds a way to proc weapon swap sigils, but I don’t think you should get a true weapon swap. It would simply mess up too much of the class.

As if the class isn’t messed up already, right?
Even if we had such a thing, weapons and utilities would still be balanced over kits. So nothing would change.

I don’t know how to help you. This is class design. Engie is built around around having access to all their skills at once. And having at least one kit. Thief is built around having no cooldown on weapons. Necro is built around having death shroud to subvert the 10 second cooldown on weapon swap. Ele don’t get an additional skill to make up for taking conjured weapons. Neither do warriors for banners.

If you want fixed drawbacks for skill types look at the necromancer corruptions.

If you don’t like my explanation then look at the other commenters in this thread.

It simply isn’t possible to give a true weapon swap without completely reworking the class. All weapons would have to be altered in strength. The toolbelt skills would have to be altered in strength. The kits would have to be altered in strength. Cooldown on kit swaps would be added.

And we would still have the same problem we do now for Elites Specializations.

Daniel Handler.4816:

I don’t know how to help you. This is class design. Engie is built around around having access to all their skills at once.

And this is right…

And having at least one kit.

…whereas this is the issue.
See all the examples you’ve done below?

Daniel Handler.4816:

Thief is built around having no cooldown on weapons. Necro is built around having death shroud to subvert the 10 second cooldown on weapon swap.

Those are built in the class. No thief weapon will have cooldowns. And every necro will always have death shroud at their disposal.
If kits are supposed to be required, they should work the same way. It shouldn’t be an option at all, but rather something forced upon the class. Like attunements.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Ele don’t get an additional skill to make up for taking conjured weapons. Neither do warriors for banners.

And those are just normal skills. They don’t dictate the balance of the whole class, and they don’t have fixed drawbacks just because those skills exist.

Daniel Handler.4816:

If you want fixed drawbacks for skill types look at the necromancer corruptions.

And those are fine. You use them and when you do it you get a drawback.
You don’t have it to start with only because your class has those utility skills.

Daniel Handler.4816:

If you don’t like my explanation then look at the other commenters in this thread.

It simply isn’t possible to give a true weapon swap without completely reworking the class. All weapons would have to be altered in strength. The toolbelt skills would have to be altered in strength. The kits would have to be altered in strength. Cooldown on kit swaps would be added.

And i honestly think we would really need a rework. This was the last class introduced on the game. It barely worked when the game launched, and let’s face it, they had to put many recycled things just to give us something – even the kits themselves were just ambiental weapons stitched to a skill.
There was likely no plan for elite specializations back then. Now there are, and here we have a class that can’t go beyond an utility type. Let alone have good, standalone main weapons – they will always have to be balanced over kits.
New utilities? We will be forced to use kits for the most part anyway. Other classes may have utilties stronger than others as well, but they aren’t having their whole class balanced over their use. We are. And it will just worsen the more we go on. Cause every specialization will have to be balanced that way.

The current concept of kits would be fine as an elite specialization. You equip that line, and you get both disadvantages and advantages. It becomes a choice. And it makes the base class properly balanceable, as it would eliminate the extreme variation between no-kit and full-kit builds. It could even be something like “they can use one or two kits at most at the same time” for the base class, and a ton of problems would be solved – they don’t have to balance the weapons and kits themselves over a “they have a main weapon and up to 5 kits” situation anymore. It could even work with other elite specializations – when they introduced them, they said that at the moment they don’t work with other ones, so it is something that could change – and it wouldn’t force them to balance the elite specialization as well over kits unlike how they’ve to do right now.
And to me, such an approach seems drastically better than what we’ve got now.

You want to eliminate variation on the class that is entirely designed around variation.

You dont want to play engie anymore.

Engie has no cooldown between accessing it’s skills. That is its design. Every concept from kits to toolbelt revolves around this. To add cooldown is to make something that is not engie. The 10 weapons swap cooldown is not engie.

You are starting to sound like the people who want revenant to have control over their utilities.

coglin.1867:

In my opinion, you should embrace the kit functionally, or play a different profession. If you do not like the functionality, I see no reason to ruin it for those of us who do.

Totally agree. If you REALLY like weapon swap go play warrior with quick hands or whatever it’s called..

Sarahfull.4930:

coglin.1867:

In my opinion, you should embrace the kit functionally, or play a different profession. If you do not like the functionality, I see no reason to ruin it for those of us who do.

Totally agree. If you REALLY like weapon swap go play warrior with quick hands or whatever it’s called..

It’s just a class people need to get used to. Just like people will get use to elementalist attunements, or you not being able to control which utilities you slot on revenant.

Daniel Handler.4816:

You want to eliminate variation on the class that is entirely designed around variation.

If by variation you mean “equip multiple kits and use the rest of the slots (if there are) on something else”, then sure. I guess my definition of variation is different, though.

You dont want to play engie anymore.

If anything, i would like to play the engineer in his entirety without getting punished for doing it. Thus using all those other utilities instead of having to rely on some kit all the time.

Engie has no cooldown between accessing it’s skills. That is its design. Every concept from kits to toolbelt revolves around this. To add cooldown is to make something that is not engie. The 10 weapons swap cooldown is not engie.

If anything, that’s just your definition of what is “engie”. Neither the profession page or balance philosophies ever declared something like that. And kits were supposed to be specialized weapons, not the best choice for everything like some are now.

Daniel Handler.4816:

You are starting to sound like the people who want revenant to have control over their utilities.

Revenant? Oh, yeah, that class that was announced as not having weapon swap and that received it during their beta. Guess some more months before the launch would have been good for us too. If we weren’t the last profession designed, at least.

Sarahfull.4930:

Totally agree. If you REALLY like weapon swap go play warrior with quick hands or whatever it’s called..

Or i could play with all the other utilities the engineers have got and not get punished for it. If only what was put as optional was actually optional.

Daniel Handler.4816:

It’s just a class people need to get used to. Just like people will get use to elementalist attunements, or you not being able to control which utilities you slot on revenant.

I played engineer as a main for more than three years. I guess i’ve got enough time to get used to it. But after three years, i’m kinda fed up of not being able to use the rest of the utilities without getting punished for doing it.

Oh, and the comparisons made no sense (as always, i should add). Those aren’t optional, they’re just how their class work. There are no elementalists without attunements, there are no revenants with free control upon their utilities. But there can be engineers without kits. And they shouldn’t be as terrible as they are.

Manu. Kits are your second weapon. That is the class design. That has been the design from the start.

Every single class on that profession page mentions their core mechanic after their list of weapons, except for five. Thief explains initiative before steal . Mesmer explains Illusions before shatter. Warrior explains adrenaline before burst. Necromancer explains life force before death shroud. It’s clear what their primary mechanic is even if it’s not their core mechanic.

And engie has this paragraph

Weapons

Engineers are walking kitten nals that carry everything they need to dominate the battlefield. They can enhance their offensive and defensive power with special kits and turrets.

Nowhere on the page is the toolbelt mentioned. Kits and turrets are you weapons.

Every single class except for five means three (since revenant isn’t listed there). That’s more like an exception, not the rule. And whatever the initial design could have been, it doesn’t mean it works well. Even revenant initial design was one without weapon swap, yet now they have one. After they’ve been extensively tested before their release, something we couldn’t afford back then at the launch.
That’s also why they had to make a ton of changes even to the kits themselves right after the start (they couldn’t even process sigils at the start, probably because they really were just normal ambiental weapons).

But aside that…you’re mentioning turrets? The ones we can use to “help defend and take control of an area”, right?
I mean, i quoted that paragraph a lot of times when turret nerfs were being discussed, yet we can all see in what pitiable state they’ve been reduced. Despite whatever could be the initial design. It seems to me they don’t care much about what they’ve written there.
Guess i have to hope they’ll give the turret treatment to kits as well, then.

Oh, and toolbelt not being listed doesn’t mean much (not even elixirs are listed, by the way). They’re still our main class mechanic. Toolbelt, not kits. Else we would be elementalists – they’re the ones whose main mechanic is changing weapon sets.

Manuhell.2759:

Every single class except for five means three (since revenant isn’t listed there). That’s more like an exception, not the rule. And whatever the initial design could have been, it doesn’t mean it works well. Even revenant initial design was one without weapon swap, yet now they have one. After they’ve been extensively tested before their release, something we couldn’t afford back then at the launch.
That’s also why they had to make a ton of changes even to the kits themselves right after the start (they couldn’t even process sigils at the start, probably because they really were just normal ambiental weapons).

But aside that…you’re mentioning turrets? The ones we can use to “help defend and take control of an area”, right?
I mean, i quoted that paragraph a lot of times when turret nerfs were being discussed, yet we can all see in what pitiable state they’ve been reduced. Despite whatever could be the initial design. It seems to me they don’t care much about what they’ve written there.
Guess i have to hope they’ll give the turret treatment to kits as well, then.

Oh, and toolbelt not being listed doesn’t mean much (not even elixirs are listed, by the way). They’re still our main class mechanic. Toolbelt, not kits. Else we would be elementalists – they’re the ones whose main mechanic is changing weapon sets.

I think I wrote that poorly. It’s better to say that every class mentions their core mechanic except for engineer. Not mentioning tool belt at all is saying something.

And for the classes where the core mechanic is not the primary mechanic or it is blurred, the primary mechanic is listed first.

They list turrets and kits as their weapons. And that is listed first.

Revenants got the weapon swap because they couldn’t justify only giving them 15 skills. Now revenant will always have 20 to 21 skills. They are able to justify giving a kitless engineer 15 skills because the have access to them all at once and because they can run kits.

I think they should just make kits part of the Engineer profession mechanic and give us a new utility type to replace them. What I imagine it could be is something similar to Revenants profession mechanic equip 2 kits F1 – swap between them , when weapon swapping you swap to your active kit. Also each kit comes with his own set of 3-4 tool belt skills (F2-F5).

As an example it could be like equipping Elixir gun your weapon swap now equips Elixir Gun Kit, F2 Throw elixir B, F3 Throw elixir S, F4 Throw Elixir X
F1 swaps to your second kit and its set of tool belt skills.