Guild Wars 2

Rifle #1: Lowest damage of a 2 handed 3/4sec cast weapon. Boring appearance and doesn’t relate to any of the weapon’s other skills

Pistol#1: Lowest damage of all 1 handed 1/2sec cast and lowest bleed duration of all weapons in game.

Harpoon Gun #1: Not just lowest, but absolutely HORRIBLE damage for the longest underwater cast time for a primary weapon in the game. (warriors hit more damage on one of their 1/4 sec cast shots then we do on our 1sec cast shot! WT Kitten!) No option for a condition build to even attempt to use weapon. Projectile speed is EXTREMELY slow and doesn’t “home in” very well for being called homing Torpedo.

No wonder we feel FORCED to use kits, and at the sacrifice of utility slots ontop of it.

ANET, PLEASE fix our weapons!

Rifle#1 isnt really that bad its decent compared to pistol and it does have built in pierce that most classes have to trait for but yes the rifle #1 does not flow to well with the rest of the ablities

And to add rifles have the highest base damage of two handers atm it could just be how our weapons scale with power

you guys do know our rifle auto has a 0.65 multiplier compared to a warrior’s 0.4 multiplier.

example; (using the lowest damage range 1035 and 2000 power with enemy medium armour 2200)

warrior:
1035 × 2000 × 0.4 / 2200
828000 /2200
= 376.36

engineer:
1035 × 2000 × 0.65 /2200
1345500 / 2200
= 611.59

after this if we take into account the fact that the warrior auto causes bleed and the engineer auto pierces the engineer auto still comes out on top. This is before introducing traits after which point the engineer auto pulls ahead by a large margin.

I agree that rifle auto is fine. Pistol auto on the other hand… we took IP to make up for. That’s being bumped up to master tier now, so it would be justified to increase the base on the pistol auto. Harpoon gun… personally idk, I hate underwater combat and just avoid it on anything other than my mes (who is OP underwater).

Honestly id personally say all other 1# need to be nerfed down to Engineer level.

Its kinda silly that autoattacking is the best action for some professions, and the damage it does is sometimes just plain absurd. Why bother trying to land abilities when your spammable is good enough to get the job done just fine.

Singer.8740:

you guys do know our rifle auto has a 0.65 multiplier compared to a warrior’s 0.4 multiplier.

example; (using the lowest damage range 1035 and 2000 power with enemy medium armour 2200)

warrior:
1035 × 2000 × 0.4 / 2200
828000 /2200
= 376.36

engineer:
1035 × 2000 × 0.65 /2200
1345500 / 2200
= 611.59

after this if we take into account the fact that the warrior auto causes bleed and the engineer auto pierces the engineer auto still comes out on top. This is before introducing traits after which point the engineer auto pulls ahead by a large margin.

Warr rifle have condition damage and 1200range vs 1000 rifle range for engi.

Lets take warr long bow thats have only direct damage and same range
What we see? 0.66 damage multiplier for #1 long bow

No. Engineers are the only class safe from the “autoattack spam” stigma. All other classes should function like engineer: Weak autos, strong aimed skills.

Jastorm.5972:

Rifle #1: Lowest damage of a 2 handed 3/4sec cast weapon. Boring appearance and doesn’t relate to any of the weapon’s other skills

Pistol#1: Lowest damage of all 1 handed 1/2sec cast and lowest bleed duration of all weapons in game.

Harpoon Gun #1: Not just lowest, but absolutely HORRIBLE damage for the longest underwater cast time for a primary weapon in the game. (warriors hit more damage on one of their 1/4 sec cast shots then we do on our 1sec cast shot! WT Kitten!) No option for a condition build to even attempt to use weapon. Projectile speed is EXTREMELY slow and doesn’t “home in” very well for being called homing Torpedo.

No wonder we feel FORCED to use kits, and at the sacrifice of utility slots ontop of it.

ANET, PLEASE fix our weapons!

eh, u should look at necro staff#1

We should account for our rifle #1 being its only properly ranged skill (unlike warriors, whose rifle is a proper ranged weapon). And crack shot is also moved down to adept slot.
Also, while we do have many traits, they are designed to offer single effects to multiple weapons (often self-exclusionary between them).
For example, let’s take pistols. We have a trait to reduce recharge and one to pierce.
The warriors’ rifle mentioned above take it both with a single trait (and as said above, it is moved down to adept slot).

But due of how the class is designed – as in, the presence of kits – we’ve got quite a problem with the balance of skills.
The engineer should be balanced either when using just their main weapon, or when using multiple kits. This basically means that putting strong skills on a weapon makes the whole class unbalanced when using multiple kits, since people can cycle between them. And that’s also why our kits’ skills 2-5 usually have different effects, but not strictly burst skills – the flamethrower’s #2 skill is what i would call nearer to a burst skill, and see how it is the only one dealing damage in the whole kit, apart from the autoattack.
So in the end, the only skill that can have some damage is the autoattack, cause using one automatically excludes using the others, thus they can balance making it so we deal sustained damage, rather than bursts.

And while there are exceptions – static discharge is a burst build after all – they don’t depend on the kits skill themselves, but rather on the cooldown of the toolbelt; as they’re quite high in kits, a static discharge build with many of them doesn’t permit a good use of the trait.

TL;DR: we’re a mess to balance.

Jastorm.5972:

Rifle #1: Lowest damage of a 2 handed 3/4sec cast weapon.

Wait, what????
You mean the longest range 2h weapon does less damage the the melee 2h weapon? Why that is preposterous. What insanity is this, that weapons with the greatest risk offer more reward???? One would almost think this could become a reoccurring pattern in which you were rewarded with more damage when required to risk more by being in melee range, while doing slightly less damage for being at max range with more mobility.

Jastorm.5972:

Boring appearance and doesn’t relate to any of the weapon’s other skills

Well that is a matter of opinion, and honestly, I feel yours is a terrible one. I feel Hunter, Grinning Gorde Gun, and Charzooka, are prime examples of awesome looking rifles.

Rifle is a fairly strong ranged auto. Not the strongest, but definitely in a decent spot. Compare it to, say, ele staff or scepter autos.

Rifle auto feels decent. Pistol I agree with, its so weak. Harpoon gun? Not even gonna talk about it, I avoid the water with all my strength. I would also throw in flame jet, the way most of the damage is put at the last hit makes it so unreliable for damage in pvp/wvw fights.

DINAMIT.3018:

Singer.8740:

you guys do know our rifle auto has a 0.65 multiplier compared to a warrior’s 0.4 multiplier.

example; (using the lowest damage range 1035 and 2000 power with enemy medium armour 2200)

warrior:
1035 × 2000 × 0.4 / 2200
828000 /2200
= 376.36

engineer:
1035 × 2000 × 0.65 /2200
1345500 / 2200
= 611.59

after this if we take into account the fact that the warrior auto causes bleed and the engineer auto pierces the engineer auto still comes out on top. This is before introducing traits after which point the engineer auto pulls ahead by a large margin.

Warr rifle have condition damage and 1200range vs 1000 rifle range for engi.

Lets take warr long bow thats have only direct damage and same range
What we see? 0.66 damage multiplier for #1 long bow

1. I outlined the fact that the warrior rifle auto does cause a bleed but you have completely ignored the fact that the engineer auto has the far more useful pierce ability.

2. what does the bow auto have to do with anything in this thread? apart from the fact that it is slow as hell (half a second slower than the warrior and engineer auto’s) for having a mere 0.01 more multiplier.

The fact remains that the engineer rifle auto is one of the games better auto attacks. Sadly our pistol and harpoon gun auto attacks are not up to the same standard (although why you would not be using the OP nades under water is beyond me?)
Just do the maths as I have and you will see.

Pistol Auto is AoE. This is probably the reason why it has very low damage.

Regarding the harpoon gun. Sure the #1 skill isnt the fastest but its still aoe that scales 0.6 with power and #2 hits for 3k without any additional power of traits or armor on a 12s cooldown. The only complain you can have about the harpoon gun is that you cant use it as condition build but if you have ever landed 15k+ dmg hits on your enemy every 10s (if traited) you know that its a good weapon in a hand of a power based build.

First off thanks to everyones input, I like good discussion of other peoples opinions.
For those doing the data crunching i’m sorry if my knowledge of the numbers is off. I got all my comparisons from “http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/” It seems to be up to date and a fast way of comparing skills as base level.

Also i’m looking at 1V1 damage. Aoe is nice but doesn’t help at all in champion fights or sPvP where I find myself in 1v1 situations.

thanks singer for the math, I wasn’t looking at how multipliers work, just looking at base damage.

TerraHero: I would be fine with that.. I want a level playing field, whether all the others are brought down or we are brought up, just make it fair

KNB:

(sorry quote utility isn’t working for me)

KNB: “eh, u should look at necro staff#1”

Necro staff: 246 base, 1200 range, pierces, 3/4 sec cast
Eng Rifle: 251 base, 1000 range, pierces, 3/4 sec cast.
So Necro’s feel our pain with that one but at least necro’s 2-5 staff skills have a 1200 yard range to match… Engi 3,4 have 400, and 5 has 700 yard range…

Coglin: First off, drop the attitude. I’m stating my opinion of something i’d like to see fixed.. you don’t agree that’s fine and you are welcome to debate but being disrespectful about it isn’t necessary. You also assume a lot. Yes I failed to mention I was comparing ranged weapons.. for a similar comparison.. I thought common sense would have taken place there.. everyone else seems to get it.

Fast Asleep: Homing torpedo is not AOE. There is no radius mentioned it is single target only. Plust the speed ot it can practically be out run by anyone with swiftness. Not everyone runs power builds we should have the option. All other classes seem to have a condition weapon and a power weapon underwater. Except us. (ele’s have choice of attunement).

Enjoying the talks and debates. Seems everyone agrees that pistol #1 needs some help. Rifle is our most balanced weapon except for the whole range issue. almost need a choice of a shotgun or a rifle as a weapon, not this half and half stuff lol.

Jastorm.5972:

thanks singer for the math, I wasn’t looking at how multipliers work, just looking at base damage.

your welcome. The problem a lot of people have is they just read the tool tip numbers which sadly are inaccurate, including on sights such as gw2skill.

the calculation is

weapon power (found at the top of the weapons tool tip) x power x skill modifier (found on the wiki for the skill) / armor

Wp x P x Sm / Amr = direct damage

you can further then modify this number by adding on food bonuses, might , traits etc.
to gain a new total that is then further modified by crit damage that is then finally modified by your enemies ability’s (traits such stabilized armor for example.), protection, glancing and the vulnerability de-buff.

Its a lot to take in but i reccomend if you want to compare skills. Simply do the formula and then compare pros and cons of the skills such as range, attack speed, effects etc.

Jastorm.5972:

Enjoying the talks and debates. Seems everyone agrees that pistol #1 needs some help. Rifle is our most balanced weapon except for the whole range issue. almost need a choice of a shotgun or a rifle as a weapon, not this half and half stuff lol.

Actually the engineer is supposed to be a medium-range skirmisher, so it fits very well. I really like the fact that our weapon skills have different effective ranges and generally become more powerful the closer you get, it’s part of what makes the engineer playstyle.

I mean, I’d hate to have to choose a shotgun with a short-range auto, and I’d also hate to have a pure ranged rifle with no close-range skills like blunderbuss or OC shot. Both of those would seem much less interesting to me.

pistol auto is kitten yes but then again the kit autos are great and finding the right kit to suit the right build plays an important role which in turn makes improving pistol auto a difficult thing, at very minimum I’d recommend buffing the damage and bleed duration to the same as the elixir gun auto attack since why have 2 very accessible autos be so very different.

as for the rifle yes please buff the damage my 2k autos at 1200 range are weak and underpowered. ………… yes rifle is fine and as much as people dislike the skill set they synergise with our kits very well.

and last but not least how many people just want pistol to me powerful so they don’t have to look at hobo sacks as much lol?

Jastorm.5972:

(sorry quote utility isn’t working for me)

KNB: “eh, u should look at necro staff#1”

Necro staff: 246 base, 1200 range, pierces, 3/4 sec cast
Eng Rifle: 251 base, 1000 range, pierces, 3/4 sec cast.
So Necro’s feel our pain with that one but at least necro’s 2-5 staff skills have a 1200 yard range to match… Engi 3,4 have 400, and 5 has 700 yard range…

Coglin: First off, drop the attitude. I’m stating my opinion of something i’d like to see fixed.. you don’t agree that’s fine and you are welcome to debate but being disrespectful about it isn’t necessary. You also assume a lot. Yes I failed to mention I was comparing ranged weapons.. for a similar comparison.. I thought common sense would have taken place there.. everyone else seems to get it.

Fast Asleep: Homing torpedo is not AOE. There is no radius mentioned it is single target only. Plust the speed ot it can practically be out run by anyone with swiftness. Not everyone runs power builds we should have the option. All other classes seem to have a condition weapon and a power weapon underwater. Except us. (ele’s have choice of attunement).

Enjoying the talks and debates. Seems everyone agrees that pistol #1 needs some help. Rifle is our most balanced weapon except for the whole range issue. almost need a choice of a shotgun or a rifle as a weapon, not this half and half stuff lol.

Sorry if it is wrong. I havent played power engi in over 6 months now in spvp (i never fought underwater anywhere else tbh) so i just hoped that what is written on the gw2 wiki was right.
“This skills damage is applied in a small area. "
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Homing_Torpedo

And even if you dont have a condition weapon underwater you still have the luxury of fast kit swap. So even if you only have one attack the applies fire on the harpoon gun you still have 2 control skills and you can chuck out an instant 3k dmg on an enemy if it gets close enough while you always can switch back to something like eg to auto apply bleeding.

Wait, am I missing something here? Rifle #1 is really nice when used with a burst-oriented build (x/30/x/x/30). It pierces by default and can be traited for 1200 range.

This is probably a minor thing but it’s really great when leveling, it’s what got me hooked to rifle (besides the immobilize + knockback) :P

Strictly speaking Homing Torpedo has an AoE component. However the AoE is utterly tiny.
It seems to be a work-around for how Homing Torpedo actually works. It doesnt really make contact with someone, but instead detonates when it gets really close and deals damage that way. Which leads to seperate issues.
And often completely fails to land damage on a target that is moving up or down as it has a great deal of difficulty with the vertical component of underwater combat.

Its also incredibly slow and anyone swimming away from you will just outrange it rather easily. For a fun comparison, go underwater buff yourself with Swiftness and swim forward while firing Homing torpedo. And take note of how far this torpedo actually gets away from you.
That is about the effective range.

Well with all this talk i’m starting to change my tune about how I feel about our weapon skills. :-) Rifle is sounding better after looking at the numbers and thinking about it in the way Nevir states about us being skirmishers. Pistol could use slight tweaks and i’m sure it would be better. Up the bleed to 3-4 seconds to allow a little bit more stacking and allow explosive traits to work for explosive shot and this would help greatly. Having accuracy on Poison dart volley at a 600 range at least would help to… you have to be like right next to the person to get more then one hit lol. (I hate cheering for myself when I get a second hit with this weapon lol)

The reason I want a little change to weapon skills is I want to be able to play without kits. I want my turret build, I want my gadget build, I want my pure elixir build. (I used to have a great turret P/P sPvP build until they took conditions away from rifle/rocket turret :’( booo. also had a fun gadget build until the condi spam era came in to play no condi cleanse with gadgets) so here is a new idea

We can’t change weapons, fine… I’d love to us be able to put a kit in our change weapon slot but that would prob have a balance issue. (3 turrets and tool kit sounds pretty kitten lol) so how about we get a “CHANGE AMMO” button instead of change weapon. Sounds like something an engi could have.

For example Rifle…. put in Deer slugs and you get more ranged shots like hip and net shot…. put in buck shot and BLAM you get blunder buss. OC and Jumpshot could prob work for both so not to kill any builds.
Deer slugs get Hip shot, Net shot and maybe a new skill like Armor Piercing shot where it stacks some vulnerability but piercing the armor of the target. Hip shot and Piercing shot would have reduced effectiveness on anything closer then 600
Buck shot gets Blast (600 range shot gun blast style auto fire) and Debris… engi shoves nuts/bolts/dirt and whatever else he has in his pockets and blasts the enemy dazing and damaging them.

Give me some time i’ll think up new ammo for the pistol as well. :-) Any thoughts on new ammo option? :-D

Jastorm.5972:

Rifle #1: Lowest damage of a 2 handed 3/4sec cast weapon. Boring appearance and doesn’t relate to any of the weapon’s other skills

Pistol#1: Lowest damage of all 1 handed 1/2sec cast and lowest bleed duration of all weapons in game.

Harpoon Gun #1: Not just lowest, but absolutely HORRIBLE damage for the longest underwater cast time for a primary weapon in the game. (warriors hit more damage on one of their 1/4 sec cast shots then we do on our 1sec cast shot! WT Kitten!) No option for a condition build to even attempt to use weapon. Projectile speed is EXTREMELY slow and doesn’t “home in” very well for being called homing Torpedo.

No wonder we feel FORCED to use kits, and at the sacrifice of utility slots ontop of it.

ANET, PLEASE fix our weapons!

dude harpoon gun’s cast time is the least of its worries its the Travel speed thats just pathetic anyone can outswim our projectiles even Crippled or Chilled

The rifle could be better, but it’s not as bad.
The Pistol NEEDS, I repeat, NEEDS to be buffed, BADLY.
The harpoon gun NEEDS, to be buffed, ALSO really badly.

Seriously, I’s a pain.

You … guys do know that “base damage” doesn’t exist?

Xyonon.3987:

You … guys do know that “base damage” doesn’t exist?

If they increased the condition duration or lowered the cast time for the pistol it would be fine.

We have so many skills. If you think the #1 is weak then for heaven’s sake don’t use it.

The point is that you shouldn’t give us ANYTHING that’s completley worthless, and Engineer has a lot of those. Traits, skills, and the #1 abilities.

Seriously, that’s just borderline unacceptable.

Captain Swag.5893:

The point is that you shouldn’t give us ANYTHING that’s completley worthless, and Engineer has a lot of those. Traits, skills, and the #1 abilities.

Seriously, that’s just borderline unacceptable.

You forgot downed state…

That too. :[
/15 Char

Requiem.8769:

We have so many skills. If you think the #1 is weak then for heaven’s sake don’t use it.

Actually, we don’t have “so many skills”.
We can have many skills if we slot kits.
If we don’t, we have quite a limited number – less than any other class, due to no weapon swap – and the autoattack must be used quite often.
So, if it is weak, it is quite a problem.

Writetyper.1985:

No. Engineers are the only class safe from the “autoattack spam” stigma. All other classes should function like engineer: Weak autos, strong aimed skills.

Agree 100 percent.

That being said the flamethrower, tool kit auto attack leave much to be desired. ESP the instant death that a flamethrower auto can do if poorly timed. Let alone the fact that a single 1/2 s bomb auto does more than the 2 s channel FT does.

I would love to c flamethrower get a re-work for the 1 skill. I like the idea of tool kit repairing but who uses turrets? Seeing as I hate turrets… Replace the toolbelt auto to something more useful.

Rifle #1 is still better than Ranger’s LB #1tho

Rym.1469:

Rifle #1 is still better than Ranger’s LB #1tho

Rifle is the one that’s NOT totally garbage, the others however…

i personally have been upset ever since game came out about pistol auto attack. in beta the explosion applied the bleeding in an AoE, and the skill read “bleeding nearby foes”. when the game released it no longer applied bleeding to nearby targets.even for a long time(probably 8 months or so) into the game is had that same tool tip. i found this feature one of the best things about engineer since u could shoot so a cannon in wvw and bleed the person on it. much later in the game i discovered coated bullets and i understand why they made the change but i think they should have increased to bleed duration to compensate to the loss of AoE

Singer.8740:

you guys do know our rifle auto has a 0.65 multiplier compared to a warrior’s 0.4 multiplier.

example; (using the lowest damage range 1035 and 2000 power with enemy medium armour 2200)

warrior:
1035 × 2000 × 0.4 / 2200
828000 /2200
= 376.36

engineer:
1035 × 2000 × 0.65 /2200
1345500 / 2200
= 611.59

after this if we take into account the fact that the warrior auto causes bleed and the engineer auto pierces the engineer auto still comes out on top. This is before introducing traits after which point the engineer auto pulls ahead by a large margin.

yet warrior’s does more damage anyway. i’d say a warrior with as much crit chance and damage as me could crit about 1k auto attacks. lets not forget that all of their skills are long ranged, do more damage, and on top of that they have a one shot with it.

Writetyper.1985:

No. Engineers are the only class safe from the “autoattack spam” stigma. All other classes should function like engineer: Weak autos, strong aimed skills.

/cough

elementalists

/cough

I think the engineer is totally fine with those skills he got. If you use any auto attacks on the engineer for spam, you should stop playing him and go for a warrior or GS mesmer, bearbow ranger, or fire staff ele, what ever.

The engineer is not made for auto attacks. He also never has to use them. You can spam grenades with vulnerability, 2,3,4,5, spam all the toolbelt damage skills, can use the rifle 3,4,5 switch to elixier gun or grenades again, you never ever have to use an auto attack on the engineer. You have no time for aa’s.

I often see engineers just shooting pistol and rifle 1’s and it’s making me sad. They are completly useless if you think about what an engineer can do with all those combofields and finishers.

For example take the heal turret, fire bomb, elixier cannon and a shield:

• healing turret
• toolbelt explosive keg
• fire bomb
• explode turret
• shield double 4
• elixier gun 4
  → Everyone got 12 stacks might for 20 sec.

You also can do this with a water field and heal the sh|t out of it

If you use kits.
If you don’t, you have less skills than anyone else in the game – especially weapon ones.
So you will have to rely on the autoattack.

If you use kits? IF you use kits?! IF you use kits?!?!
Dude that’s like you would say “Mesmer are just good if they use illusions” o.O It’s our main mechanic to use kits wtf o.O At least one is a must.

Xyonon.3987:

If you use kits? IF you use kits?! IF you use kits?!?!
Dude that’s like you would say “Mesmer are just good if they use illusions” o.O It’s our main mechanic to use kits wtf o.O At least one is a must.

No, our main mechanic is the toolbelt.
If kits were our main mechanic, we would always have them without spending utility slots. And it isn’t so.

(and mesmers can generate illusions with weapon skills as well, anyway)

The Pistol AA and Rifle AA are imo quite ok. The Rifle one has a weird animation, but it’s piercing so it’s damage against groups is quite acceptable, while the Pistol has that explosion+bleed to make up for it.

The Harpoon Gun OTOH… or while we’re at it, Mesmer Scepter… -.-

(also, what Manuhell said is important to keep in mind, the Engineer class mechanic is the toolbelt, not the kit)

That’s not the point. The point is that you have the skill and you should make use of it. You can also easy play with 3 kits, because the kits themsleves grant you the utility you need.

The grenade or bomb kit are more damage focused, whereas on the other hand the elixier gun and the (forgot the name, playin’ in a different language) mechanic kit are very utility focused.

Tell me – what skills do you use as Utility slots? Or better: wich one do you want to use but you can’t because of the kits?

The toolbelt is not our main mechanic. It’s simply a class mechanic, but it’s not that important as the kits themselves. It’s like shatter for mesmer – the main mechanic still is the illusions.

Xyonon.3987:

That’s not the point. The point is that you have the skill and you should make use of it. You can also easy play with 3 kits, because the kits themsleves grant you the utility you need.

I do not have them – i can have them, that’s the matter. They are optional, thus we should be balanced either if we have 3 kits or no kit at all.

Xyonon.3987:

The grenade or bomb kit are more damage focused, whereas on the other hand the elixier gun and the (forgot the name, playin’ in a different language) mechanic kit are very utility focused.

Tell me – what skills do you use as Utility slots? Or better: wich one do you want to use but you can’t because of the kits?

Try playing Pistol/Shield while not using any kit. See for yourself how much damage you deal. Sure, you can buff yourself a bit via elixirs – but you still lack the means of dealing damage, other than the autoattack. And the autoattack can’t do much alone.
Sure, the situation is a bit better with two pistols, but just slightly – you just added a some burning.
And we can use static discharge on a rifle build…but there we won’t be using kits only due of their toolbelt cooldowns, not because we’re efficient without them; and we’re still relegated on getting the utilities with the shortest toolbelt cooldowns.

Xyonon.3987:

The toolbelt is not our main mechanic. It’s simply a class mechanic, but it’s not that important as the kits themselves. It’s like shatter for mesmer – the main mechanic still is the illusions.

Except the kits are optional – and you can’t balance a whole class taking for assured something optional will be used.

Mesmers can create illusions with their main weapons. And they can swap between them to create some more. Then they can shatter them.
And they haven’t used a single utility slot in doing so.

Whereas we start without a second weapon slot, our main weapons dps are nerfed due to the existance of kits (at least, this was the design until last december, they never updated regarding their intentions) and we have to spend utility slots for additional weapons (that are ultimately more limited than normal main weapons, mostly for balance reasons as i explained in a post above). And that is just to be on par with other classes (sure, we have no swap cooldown, but the #2…#5 skills are also toned down in effects compared to normal weapon skills, and we still pay a slot for them).

Sure, one could say we have the toolbelt to compensate for it…but that is our class mechanic, it shouldn’t compensate anything. It would be like saying warriors should have a reduced damage on weapons because they have a burst skill, or that guardians should have reduced healing, blocks and damage because they can heal, burn and put aegis with their virtues.

Just because something is optional doesn’t mean you can be efficient without it. It seems you know something about the mesmer, very well, a little example there at the traits: There is a trait that grants all illusions perma fury. You could miss it, it’s optional, but it’s not efficient to not take it on a power build. Or the GS, perfect compareable to the rifle: Good skills but the aa is totally crap.

We got kits so make use of them. It’s like our weapon swap. It’s negative that we have to use a utility slot, but we can carry 4 weapons at the same time with us due this mechanic. And the point that we can switch between them without CD grants us the ability of flexibility. It would be ok if we wouldn’t have a 1 on the main weapons, they are just fillers.

I understand that you don’t want to sacrifice a utility slot for an acceptable aa, but its how the Engineer work and not every build has to be as efficient as the other, not everything has to work, no weapon shall be strong by itself. Engineer is a very complex class and very stressful but very funny and efficient if played properly.

Xyonon.3987:

Just because something is optional doesn’t mean you can be efficient without it. It seems you know something about the mesmer, very well, a little example there at the traits: There is a trait that grants all illusions perma fury. You could miss it, it’s optional, but it’s not efficient to not take it on a power build. Or the GS, perfect compareable to the rifle: Good skills but the aa is totally crap.

Fine, but you don’t have already fixed penalities just because you could take it.
We have those – reduced damage on main weapons and no second weapon slot.

We got kits so make use of them. It’s like our weapon swap. It’s negative that we have to use a utility slot, but we can carry 4 weapons at the same time with us due this mechanic. And the point that we can switch between them without CD grants us the ability of flexibility. It would be ok if we wouldn’t have a 1 on the main weapons, they are just fillers.

The problem is, kits are balanced as if they were the primary mechanic – something we always have at our disposal.
Instead we should be good either with a single main weapon (and 4 non-kit utilities) or with a weapon and four kits.
And it is something terribly hard to balance properly, even giving minor effects to most of the kit skills (after all, grenades and bombs skills apart from the autoattack are all about inflicting a condition and/or putting an elemental field – it would be quite underwhelming as a main weapon).

Xyonon.3987:

I understand that you don’t want to sacrifice a utility slot for an acceptable aa, but its how the Engineer work and not every build has to be as efficient as the other, not everything has to work, no weapon shall be strong by itself. Engineer is a very complex class and very stressful but very funny and efficient if played properly.

Sure, but balancing all the rest upon the fact that kits will be used devalues all the other utilities. Especially since we spend utility slots, as you mentioned too.
But if we already paid the price to use the kits, why should be avoid using them, after all?
It would be a different matter if we had a free slot for a kit (that could also permit to have the tool kit and the turrets in utilities).

I think the issue here is a compound problem resulting of:

1. Kits have a greater-than-average utility value per slot. This is no real surprise, as they offer more abilities than other utility skills.
2. Because of this, the raw number of weapon skills available to an Engineer goes up (comparable to an Elementalist, but it’s the class mechanic there, we already have 2x Healing/Utility slots from the Toolbelt as our class mechanic).
3. As a result, some selections which are universal (read: the normal weapons) are undertuned so as to not overpower the total package.

I think the specific way to more balance here would be to buff the weapons, rebalance the kits, then make them… limited. Say a weapon-swap CD until you can disable the kit again. Or a limited charge model.
This allows to buff some kits, and also to buff up the base weapons.