Guild Wars 2

I’m seeing a lot of discussion about Kit Refinement. Being a turret Engineer, I never really paid a ton of attention to the trait, but seeing it being the subject of so many threads now has me wondering what I missed.

I’m wondering why everyone is so upset over this trait. It looks to me, on paper, to be a useful skill. It doesn’t seem overpowered; it doesn’t seem underpowered. It looks like what I’d expect an Adept-tiered trait to look like. Yet I see a lot of vitriol over the trait. And that has me asking myself two questions.

First question: if the current iteration of Kit Refinement is so bad why not simply choose a new trait? The only answer I can think of is “it used to be so much better.” And that answer leads me to my second questions: if Kit Refinement used to be such a good trait that it was too good to pass up, then don’t you think a bit of a nerf was probably in order?

I’m not looking to rock the boat here, I’m legitimately curious why everyone’s so upset. And as I said, I don’t know what KR used to be or why it was such a staple in other builds, so please feel free to fill me in. Thanks.

Its because it was a complete rewrite of a popular Trait that fit into alot of ppls playstyles.
You could argue whether or not the new KR effects are better or worse than the olds ones.

But the reason so many ppl are upset is the Trait wasn’t just balanced with either ICDs or moving it up the Trait tree, its that it was completely rewritten in how and when it works.

Any profession that receives such a large change would undoubtably have alot of unhappy customers after the fact.

It can be assumed that KR was focused on by the Devs because of the BarrageX2 burst since they as much as said so. So ppl are furthur upset that out of all the professions that can deliver near-instant kills the Engineer is the one that had theirs altered.

Doesn’t really matter though, whats done is done and ppl will have to learn to deal with it.
My prediction is that Kit Refinement will just move down the ladder into a group with all the other Traits that nobody really uses. Then maybe one day down the line the 20sec shared CD will be removed and it might regain some status as a Kit essential Trait that it used to be.

It allowed the Elixir Gun to 100% sustain a Light field.

No one contested the idea that it was too powerful as a 10-point trait, but to completely remove that ability in place of an immobilization (?) on top of a 20-second cooldown was very harsh.

I think a lot of people would’ve been fine if it was just moved up the tree and buffed into an Evasive Arcana type trait. Instead we got something ridiculously worse that’s nigh useless.

The way they went about the nerf is the problem.
Moving it to a higher tier and keeping it as is, or even the current state with individual cooldowns would have been fine, and justified. But the global cooldown makes chaining impossible and very commonly triggers itself when the effect isn’t desired, preventing you from using the one you want when you want it.
kitten, prior to the effect rebalancing it was probably worthy of a grandmaster, and I wouldn’t have any problem with that (especially if it meant Adrenal Implant or Armor Mods would be moved down to Adept, which is much more fitting for them).
But with the global cooldown holding it back, one needs only compare it to another similar trait, Elemental Attunement, which has no invisible global cooldown (yes the attunements share a global cooldown but you can see it and it’s nowhere near 20s) and produces effects generally superior to KR.

I misinterpreted the cooldown. I didn’t realize it was a global cooldown, and I agree 20 seconds seems a bit much. This wouldn’t hurt a Engineer running one or maybe two kits on his skill bar, but someone with three is certainly going to feel this change.

But even with the harsh shared cooldown, is it really that bad of a trait? It still seems to me to be in line with the rest of the Adept traits in the Tools trait line. They all strike me as marginally useful traits.

Given what else you can get putting your 10 points elsewhere, yes. It is that bad.

The only reason anyone would really have use for Kit Refinement is if they wanted Power Wrench and just grabbed KR on the way. Even then, I personally would choose Speedy Kits or Static Discharge over it, because coincidentally (ironically?) the Tool Kit has the most useless KR proc of them all.

darkace.8925:

I misinterpreted the cooldown. I didn’t realize it was a global cooldown, and I agree 20 seconds seems a bit much. This wouldn’t hurt a Engineer running one or maybe two kits on his skill bar, but someone with three is certainly going to feel this change.

But even with the harsh shared cooldown, is it really that bad of a trait? It still seems to me to be in line with the rest of the Adept traits in the Tools trait line. They all strike me as marginally useful traits.

It is more fitting of a 10 point trait now, meaning it is generally useless and more of an added bonus than a Build Focus.
But your question wasn’t if the new KR is good or bad, since many arguements can/have be(en) made on tht topic.

You asked why ppl are so upset and it is simply that for almost 7 months players had been using and intergrating KR into their various builds and it was one of the most popular traits for the Engineer as it seemed to reward multikit swapping which is what everyone assumed the Engineer was supposed to be about(Thts why its a 1 sec CD for swapping.)
However after all this time and more than likely stemming from the QQ producing BarrageX2, Anet just completely rewrote the Trait to have completetly different effects(no offensive/healing) AND added restrictions that would of seemed harsh adding to the OLD KR effects.

So to alot of ppl it seems like Engineers got double slapped because they figured out how to deliver a high risk/high reward type burst.

To name a few:

1) Complete removal of 2 extra condition removals every 10-20 seconds.
2) Complete removal of the biggest burst build Engineers have had since launch
3) Complete removal of 20+ seconds of condition burn applied in quick 1-2 succession (less than a second in application)

Just three of probably dozens of variants.

Mind you, these were not ‘nerfs’ but ERASED. Gone. Does not exist anymore.

That tends to offend people a bit more than just a nerf of their build, they are now unplayable. I spend a few hours making 2 videos showcasing the power of KR builds and now they are completely obsolete.

Not nerfed. ERASED. I can’t overstate that. Does not exist, versus weaker than before.

Granted, I adjust and move on, and I’m not complaining, but I can DEFINATELY see why the Engineer community as a whole has had enough.

Add that to the fact that as a profession we’ve never been out of the bottom to mid tier in the general perception of professions in WvW, PvE, OR PvP, and it makes even less sense. Even Warriors, who are arguably the worst sPvP profession at the moment, still have relative top tier status in PvE.

That is where the angst comes from from what I’m reading and from what I’ve seen.

darkace.8925:

I misinterpreted the cooldown. I didn’t realize it was a global cooldown, and I agree 20 seconds seems a bit much. This wouldn’t hurt a Engineer running one or maybe two kits on his skill bar, but someone with three is certainly going to feel this change.

But even with the harsh shared cooldown, is it really that bad of a trait? It still seems to me to be in line with the rest of the Adept traits in the Tools trait line. They all strike me as marginally useful traits.

To consciously use the kit refinement skills, you need to not swap kits, because it wastes the cooldown. Yes, it’s a trait that encourages you to not do things.

Which is a serious shame because old kit refinement encouraged lots of in-combat kit swapping, allowing multi-kit builds that felt like odd goofy elementalists.

Mostly it was just fun, and if it was over-powered it could have been nerfed in ways that still kept it fun. Instead they made it not fun.

luckywaldo.6089:

Mostly it was just fun, and if it was over-powered it could have been nerfed in ways that still kept it fun. Instead they made it not fun.

^
Perfectly said.

Kit refinement defined a few builds. Now it can no longer do that, so those builds are destroyed. Those who liked using those builds are understandably upset. Any nerf, expected or not, that decreased the usefulness of that trait so that it could no longer define those builds was going to cause a lot of rage. Sure, AN could have restructured the trait tree to make it a grandmaster trait. I think what they did instead is the simpler method of handling the balance issue.

Fun, shmun. Don’t kid yourselves, the fun you experienced is 1-shotting people. Intellectual honesty.

Frankly I’m not too upset. Once 100nades became a household name, there were a lot of new fair-weather engineers. Now that it’s gone, we’re a rare species again, to some degree.

What does intellectual honesty mean, and how does it allow you to make assumptions about who I am and the way I play?

I was using kit refinement long before 100nades was a thing, mostly for the extra super elixir. After 100nades became a think, I was more aware of its usefulness, but I never centered my build around that 1-trick pony. I favor balanced builds, slightly leaning towards tanky.

I am an RTS player first, and that tends to lead me toward flexible builds with more drawn-out battles. I was drawn toward multi-kit engineer because it gives the variety of elementalist, but without the tedious attunement cooldowns that tends to force players into more limited rotations.

Kit refinement made it especially fun, as you were rewarded for swapping through your variety of kits. Variety is rewarded no more.

@eviator

I had a lot of build using KR and they werent 100 nades build. Stop the presomption.

KR was one of the coolest trait because it would encourage multi kit build and constant kit swapping. That was my favorite aspect of the game, kit dancing. And KR was the only trait that would affect it, and make it worth running without Cc breaker, elixir and the piano player gameplay.

That was the FUN factor, not 100 nades.

Anet completly changed the trait so it’s no longer a multi kit trait. It’s no longer fun.

So many way to balance this trait, yet they just removed it.

Elementalist have a similar trait for 10 points, are the top wvw/spvp class, and yet they didnt get the nerf.

Rant over.

I just loved that trait, for the fun factor, not the powerfactor.

darkace.8925:

I’m seeing a lot of discussion about Kit Refinement. Being a turret Engineer, I never really paid a ton of attention to the trait, but seeing it being the subject of so many threads now has me wondering what I missed.

I’m wondering why everyone is so upset over this trait. It looks to me, on paper, to be a useful skill. It doesn’t seem overpowered; it doesn’t seem underpowered. It looks like what I’d expect an Adept-tiered trait to look like. Yet I see a lot of vitriol over the trait. And that has me asking myself two questions.

First question: if the current iteration of Kit Refinement is so bad why not simply choose a new trait? The only answer I can think of is “it used to be so much better.” And that answer leads me to my second questions: if Kit Refinement used to be such a good trait that it was too good to pass up, then don’t you think a bit of a nerf was probably in order?

I’m not looking to rock the boat here, I’m legitimately curious why everyone’s so upset. And as I said, I don’t know what KR used to be or why it was such a staple in other builds, so please feel free to fill me in. Thanks.

Answer #1) You can’t just pick any new Trait. The loss of the old kit refinement killed the builds many Engineers had. Some used it for Super Elixir. Some for Grenade Barrage. Some for the flamethrower’s ability to take off a condition.

The new version gutted all those builds, without giving anything in return. Many Engineer are ok with increased cooldowns OR the new effects. They are not ok with both AND having the cooldowns shared by ALL EFFECTS.

The old version was not imbalanced as far as most Engineers are concerned, because no other professions were complaining about Engineers. So the new version is a needless nerf. It has no point or thought, except that Anet wanted to force Engineers out of how they chose to have their fun.

Answer #2) No. The assumption for question #1 lead to question #2. If too many Engineers were all picking the same trait, and if that trait was not overpowered, that just proves that many of the Engineer’s abilities/traits were worthless/lackluster in any Engineer’s arsenal. It is a Developer problem for not making more fun choices.

People were attracted to the same trait for the variety of effects, and because there was nothing else worth doing. You don’t fix that by getting rid of the only good thing that exists, forcing people to pick crap. You fix it by making the other skills/traits more desirable.

If it was “too much”, it could simply been made 20 points. But, Elementalists have a similar trait, also adept, that gives them a ton, and gave them more benefit than ours ever did. Why is it not noticed? Cause the Elementalist has many such traits that are all good, so they have a variety of builds.

That is why people are upset. Something not overpowered was kitten for the sake of ruining their fun, to make diversity. Or, the Developers’ “vision” of the Engineer is not what the players were doing. So they decided to kill off player creativity.

Eviator.9746:

Kit refinement defined a few builds. Now it can no longer do that, so those builds are destroyed. Those who liked using those builds are understandably upset. Any nerf, expected or not, that decreased the usefulness of that trait so that it could no longer define those builds was going to cause a lot of rage. Sure, AN could have restructured the trait tree to make it a grandmaster trait. I think what they did instead is the simpler method of handling the balance issue.

Fun, shmun. Don’t kid yourselves, the fun you experienced is 1-shotting people. Intellectual honesty.

Frankly I’m not too upset. Once 100nades became a household name, there were a lot of new fair-weather engineers. Now that it’s gone, we’re a rare species again, to some degree.

Don’t assume how people played, or why they chose Kit Refinement. There were many more uses to it than 1 build. Which is why it was fun.

If people can’t see beyond that one build and the fun to be had, then they weren’t very intellectual to begin with. That’s honest.

Engineer 1-shotting people? You mean the afk folk standing in WvW?

I just recently started playing engineer, and just got him to 33; I hadn’t even read what the old kit refinement did, so I’m not losing anything.

What I DID notice was the magnetic bomb; something I REALLY like because I am entranced with playing a bomb build; being able to suck my enemies in, lay down a glue bomb followed by big ol bomb just seems like fun to me.

Then again, like I said, I don’t even know what the old KR trait did, so I don’t know what I’m missing….

Ok, I went and checked. It does seem like a bit of a nerf, but it doesn’t seem so bad. For example, the throw mine for grenade kit… I love using throw mine anyway, its fun for AOE knockbacks (and I gotta tell ya, we JUST TODAY were defending a fort against invaders in wvw, and I was using throw mine with a whole stack of us on the ramp to the Lord, and I was throwing them left and right, it was awesome heh), and I see the value in sense of most of the changes.

MOST. Not all. Then again, if I’d been playing with KR the way it used to be, who knows, maybe I’d be unhappy too.

Magnetic Bomb was a lot of fun to use at first until you realized that it does absolutely nothing for you given its radius is no different from any of the other bombs you drop. You will not pull anyone into “bombing” range that wasn’t already there.

The thing is pointless.

Hsinimod.5784:

If it was “too much”, it could simply been made 20 points. But, Elementalists have a similar trait, also adept, that gives them a ton, and gave them more benefit than ours ever did.

Explain to me how getting Regeneration (which we can do at will with Healing Mist with the EG’s toolbelt skill) gives a ton more benefit than a Light field? Or how one stack of Might compares to a condition removal with the Flamethrower? Or Grenade Barrage with the Grenade Kit?

I miss Kit Refinement. I really do.

But Elemental Attunement was garbage compared to Kit Refinement before they nerfed it into the ground.

Also not sure what this “variety” of builds is with the Elementalist. They mostly run S/D or D/D with the majority of their points in Arcane and Water. They’re almost as static a community as Guardians have become surrounding Altruistic Healing.

I’d argue that even after the Kit Refinement nerf the Engineer is one of the few classes currently that has the luxury of not being a class pigeonholed into a single build.

Question #1:

• There is no other traits that provided the benefits kit refinement brought or that could affect build/playstyle as much as it did.

Question #2

• The trait was far from overpowered, Granade barrage was the only one that made real damage, but it’s comparable to thief’s MUG which is a 10 point trait, its support was less than ele’s and soothing mist which is a 5 point trait, other than that it was just 1 short snare and 2 condition removal ( utility ).

Anet simply felt that Engineers are not suppose to have this kind of damage, nor provide support. so they made this a clear statement by DELETING a build for the first time and nerfing a core trait of the class to be garbage.

I used the old KR for the extra condition removal, and healing, I made me feel useful in teams. My damage couldn’t compete with a lot of classes but at least I could be helping the team by putting down a bit of extra healing to make up for it. Also in a Multi-kit build it gave me a bit of fast condition removal which you don’t really have in the build.

The change in KR, not only made it horribly hard to get the proc you need at any given time, due to the internal cooldown. It also meant that I needed to go elsewhere for the condition removal for the build. In other words it meant I pulled mostly out of tools and moving the points into Alchemy. Leading to a situation which I couldn’t afford KR even if I wanted it.

KR was great fun. it never felt over the top. Even the 1000Nades was almost impossible to set up, and in dungeons or PvE roaming where you could set it up easily all it meant was a bit more damage to a Veteran where it would hardly be noticed, or allow you to kill a few mobs faster in PvE, where killing is not really a problem.

In other words
a) It removed most of a Trait line (Tools) from my build. I really can’t see why anyone would touch this Trait line now, beyond 10pts for Speedy Kits. I don’t know why they didn’t make KR a build defining 30pt. I would have paid it.
b) It reduced the fun of playing the engineer a lot. And to be honest I play computer games for fun. Fun for me was not 1 shotting in PvP, it was thinking ahead to get the most out the procs.

for me the main point is that a great game-mechanic is wasted now! (as i see the new KR as useless for me). i loved the situational, pbaoe effects in my otherwise ranged build – other classes (but ele) players in my guild didnt even know what i mean with kit swaping, when it was the center of my gamestyle. Now it feels like we are a bit more “of the same” gameplaywise (at least if you run hgh nades or something similar).

Whew, I made a lot of people mad. I guess everyone who used KR never used it in a manner that is unbalanced, and thus it should never have been nerfed.

/end sarcasm

Your multi-kit build still works. Maybe it’s been rendered slightly less effective. Maybe it’s been rendered slightly less fun. But if you get a kick out of swapping in and out of kits, you can still do that. If your build is destroyed by the change, then your build relied too heavily on an adept-level trait.

Some traits make a character more powerful in a generic way, a way that is essentially the same across all classes. +X% damage traits are a classic example of this. These traits get used a lot, but that doesn’t mean they are the best traits in that classes’ list.

The best traits are the ones that synergize with class mechanics to make the character more effective. These are the traits that, despite their non-standard benefits, you’d you’d still spend 20 or 30pts in a trait line to get if they suited your build – and there are very few of them around.

For kit-swapping engineers, Kit Refinement was that trait. Its effects were a bit uneven (underpowered or just downright wrong on some kits, OP on a couple of others), and it should probably have been a 20 or maybe even a 30pt trait. But, the two overpowered kit-benefits aside, it was more than just a good it was a superb class trait – possibly the only one Eng’s have.

Unfortunately, the ANet didn’t see a great class trait in need of a little balancing and well deserving of 20 or 30pt status.

All ANet saw when they looked at Kit Refinement was a trivial 10pt trait that Engs were exploiting. Their solution: redesign the trait so that it could only ever be a minor 10pt trait. On top of that, the way they did it actually reduces its utility in play the more you use the class mechanic (kit swapping) around which it is designed.

The change nerfed many marginal but fun to play multi-kits builds below viability.

- Small wonder there’s been such a reaction to this change on the Eng forums.

TLDR: The old Kit Refinement was one of the Eng’s few great class traits. ANet took that away, and replaced it with a minor 10pt trait that gets less reliable the more you use the class mechanism it’s based on. In the process ANet broke a lot of marginal but interesting builds that Engs used.

1) KR is unreliable now, thanks to the global cooldown. That means that it is often wasted while swapping, being many of the effects highly situational.
2) It punishes multi-kit builds due to that cooldown. We already have to give up utility slot for them (and toolbelt aren’t good enough to compensate) and we can’t get traits for all of them, so having a trait that could work well with all of them was a blessing. Now you just risk wasting their effects if you have more than one kit.
3) Two thirds of those effects aren’t even related to the kits at all.

I even proposed a revamp of KR in the suggestion forum by making it buff toolbelt skills instead of the current effect, yet it saw no response.

OP if you’re a turret guy I’d explain the KR change in the following way:

Imagine two patches of idiocy took every trait that helped your preferred playstyle, i.e. all turret traits, and changed them so that all those traits now granted a swiftness buff to 1 of your immobile turrets.

Multi-kit builds needed help not destroying. Multikitting should be a viable way to make up for no weapon swap and get close to the better designed no-weapon swap class the elementalists 15 extra skills, (and vastly great weapon choice combos) and no loss of utility slots.

Also it removed all ‘reliable’ condition removal to heavy/only elixir builds.

Finally it proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the balance team are just flailing around and coming up with any old kitten and throwing it out the door when it comes to engineer. To describe the engineer class as versatile and then outright destroy the ONLY truly versatile trait engineer used to have is so mind-bendingly obtuse that it’s hard to believe it actually happened, even for people who predicted it would.

I want Turret-play to become far more functional, and better developed, especially in WvW, one of it’s weakest areas, for example. You should want the same growth for multi-kitting too, it all benefits engineers overcoming their rushed last to be thrown out the door design and turning into a properly rounded class with a consistent vision, multiple lines of builds and good synergy.

The global cooldown.
The effects needed tweaking (although I do believe some are too weak atm, mostly because of the very short durations), but adding a global 20 seconds cooldown to a merely ok proc is extremely harsh if you compare it to almost anything similar in GW2.

They should have definitely moved the trait up the tree; the Grandmaster and even most Master traits in Tools are very poor tbh.
Considering it was such a staple in some very focused and unique builds this could have forced some interesting choices, instead they just removed the choice altogether.

Where is engineer versatility supposed to come from?
In my mind Kits mostly, well this trait actively motivated you to expand your choices by carrying multiple kits and/or switching freely between them.
Now it doesn’t.

Snafoo.2869:

The global cooldown.
The effects needed tweaking (although I do believe some are too weak atm, mostly because of the very short durations), but adding a global 20 seconds cooldown to a merely ok proc is extremely harsh if you compare it to almost anything similar in GW2.

They should have definitely moved the trait up the tree; the Grandmaster and even most Master traits in Tools are very poor tbh.
Considering it was such a staple in some very focused and unique builds this could have forced some interesting choices, instead they just removed the choice altogether.

Where is engineer versatility supposed to come from?
In my mind Kits mostly, well this trait actively motivated you to expand your choices by carrying multiple kits and/or switching freely between them.
Now it doesn’t.

Yeah I wouldn’t have minded the cooldown being brought in line with the Ele cooldown. 3s Global (to stop you spamming them all on top of each other) with a 12-15s individual cooldown.

I also would not have minded it being moved up the tree. It would have made the Tools line desirable

I also wouldn’t have minded too much the removal of our best Condition removal, though it would have been a pain.

I also wouldn’t have minded the removal of our biggest burst in the Grenade Proc.

THE PROBLEM, they nerfed almost every bit of it at the same time. They put a global cooldown which is horrifically restrictive compared to the Ele’s, they removed everything that made KR worthwhile. And though some of the replacements are not bad, they are not worth the effort it now takes to use them, especially as a lot of them proc in situations where you wouldn’t want them, eg. Grenades are a mid-long range weapon that drops a mine which the enemy may run into, but probably won’t. Before you could plan around them, use them in reaction. Make a conscious decision whether you swap to SE or wait to save you KR cooldown. That’s all gone, it’s random procs, which you can’t really plan for.

darkace.8925:

First question: if the current iteration of Kit Refinement is so bad why not simply choose a new trait?

We have.

HGH ‘Nades and Static Discharge are now the 2 things left over from the (5ish) accepted “generally viable” builds that Engineers ran before. (I know that you run turrets, and not to sound like an elitist here but… no one does that competitively, and we still don’t even after the buff. Please don’t take this as a personal dig on you or your playstyle… play what you like! But turrets are by-the-numbers too inferior to kits and elixirs to make the grade for most of us. I’ve discussed it in other threads and I don’t want to start yet another debate about it here, so please just accept that as my researched opinion.)

darkace.8925:

The only answer I can think of is “it used to be so much better.” And that answer leads me to my second questions: if Kit Refinement used to be such a good trait that it was too good to pass up, then don’t you think a bit of a nerf was probably in order?

It’s not that they were “so” powerful that they actually needed a nerf. Pre-patch EG with KR was actually still not as good as the cleansing and healing power that Elementalists have, and that is part of our beef (or mine, at least, since I won’t speak for the whole community – but I think you will see a lot of people agreeing with me on this.) The Grenade Barrage that made 1-shot kills in 100 ‘Nades possible (see this: http://youtu.be/-gXAliTpRwk for an example) CLEARLY needed to be changed. I don’t think any dev on any game ever has sat there and said, “You know, we need a class that turns off melee assist and stands inside their target’s character model to 1-shot the opponent…” Obviously, KR needed a change because of the 100 ’Nades tactic. And tbh anyone who has successfully played a 100 ’Nadesgineer and knows how devastating it is would never seriously argue that, unless they are just the type who wants to play the 1-shot-kill class of the game. Period.

Then again, we still have 1-shotting Thieves in PvP and people who will refuse to take anyone to a CoF run if they aren’t a Zerker Warrior (and their 1 token Mesmer) on dungeon runs, so take what you will from that.

darkace.8925:

I’m not looking to rock the boat here, I’m legitimately curious why everyone’s so upset. And as I said, I don’t know what KR used to be or why it was such a staple in other builds, so please feel free to fill me in. Thanks.

I totally understand and appreciate your question. I think a lot of people are still confused about why we are SO devastated over the changes, because it’s a sticky and complicated topic and only those who ran KR builds before really have a good grasp on why it is so hurtful to our community.

And from my point of view, the problem isn’t the KR nerf in general. KR needed a small nerf to bring it in line. The problem is that ANet has over-reacted to 100 ‘Nades – they changed every single KR proc and made several viable Engi builds obsolete. Poof! They added an invisible CD that goes off even if you just try to pop a heal and aren’t looking for a proc, making it impossible for competitive players to keep track of what they are doing and when. And to add insult to injury, they have offered us no viable alternatives. They gave a buff to turrets, but turrets are still kitten and we still don’t want to use them. That is still not a viable alternative to us.

The lack of viable alternatives I think is the real crux of the matter. They could have moved KR up the skill tree but force you to spend more trait points on it and keep it as it was (but still change the grenade barrage so that 100 ’Nades was no longer possible). They could have, alternately, kept it as a 10-point trait but made it so that the additional proc off KR was not changed by other traits like additional Nades or Healing Power, which would have solved a lot of their problems with Grenade Kit and Elixir Gun being too strong in this trait.

(cont’d because it seems I am too long-winded for this forum…)

(cont’d)
We can live without Kit Refinement. But we need something else to fill the hole in our builds. I am personally happy running a very strong Static Discharge Engie, but my farming build is gone now thanks to KR nerf, and so is the levelling build that I used to hand out to my friends who were thinking of trying the class. Engineer, the least-played (and formerly most-flexible) class in the game, now is left with only 2 builds and only those who truly love the class enough to stick with it through these hard times are willing to bust their kittens (but not their kits, any more) playing it.

I believe that most of us feel that the beauty and strength of Engi lies in his ability to constantly rotate through kits, always with some unexpected attack that isn’t on CD ready to blow the enemy’s face off. ANet has clearly sent a message with this latest nerf to KR that they do not want us using multiple kits, a defining trait of our profession, or at the very least they do not want us creating innovative builds around kit-swapping.

For the OP, I’ll try to summarize the situation before and after the last two major patches that have affected Kit Refinement.

Before the February patch, KR used to have no cooldown but the one related to each kit. You could cycle through kits and trigger the effects of each kit one after another with only the separate cooldowns for each kit KR trigger limiting you.

After the February patch, KR gave a global cooldown for all effects if you chose . . .I think it was EG and toolkit . . . while still having each kit’s separate cooldown for its respective KR trigger effect. When EG’s KR effect was triggered it would cause a 20 second global cooldown.

After the March patch, KR was revamped with new (and some reduced) effects. On top of that, the 20 second global was extended for all kit’s KR triggered effects. This severely limited the playstyle of KR players, and now most people abandon KR entirely.

I think it’s mostly because we’ve had some traits that have still been completely bugged or useless the whole time (i.e. scope and leg mods, which are also in the tool tree), but one of our useful and “good” traits gets a complete rework. Mind you, some of the abilities were either too powerful or not useful at all, but when there’s so much change put into this one trait (albeit the new abilities are mostly copy-paste jobs), it just makes you feel a bit annoyed that some stuff that actually needs fixing isn’t getting it.

Also, if kit refinement is such a powerful trait, why don’t they just bump it up the trait tier tree instead of neutering it with a 20s GCD?

Honestly, I don’t think people would be so peeved about the changes if it weren’t for the 20s GCD. It introduces an annoyance with multi-kit builds that we didn’t have to tolerate for the longest time.

Kit refinement used to be bread&butter trait for multikit builds, with the current cd it has 0 synergy with multiple kits, its pretty much worthless on it own now and they should just combine it with some other trait like speedy kits or make it a minor trait.

Eviator.9746:

Your multi-kit build still works.
If your build is destroyed by the change, then your build relied too heavily on an adept-level trait.

What is wrong with relying on something good? If that was such a problem, move it up the tree. The grandmaster traits aren’t even worth it. Every single good trait in the tools line is an adept trait. There isnt a single build in tools that didnt take either Kit Refinement, Static Discharge, or Speedy Kits. Master traits arent awful but are usually good for one Scope MIGHT have been on that list if it actually worked. I’ve seen builds with 30 in traits that took those three only. Then Static Discharge really is next on the chopping block and the cooldown on Speedy Kits will get doubled.

As I’ve said before, that would be an idea I fully support. I think AN took the easy route to balance. But balance of some kind was indeed appropriate.

In WoW when they made significant trait tree changes, they refunded everybody’s traits. I wonder if ANet is intentionally trying to avoid that kind of thing. It’s is hard to believe that after seven months, AN believes all of the traits are properly placed and just need minor balance tweaks and bug fixes. But that seems to be the case for now.

Nilix.2170:

Eviator.9746:

Your multi-kit build still works.
If your build is destroyed by the change, then your build relied too heavily on an adept-level trait.

What is wrong with relying on something good? If that was such a problem, move it up the tree. The grandmaster traits aren’t even worth it. Every single good trait in the tools line is an adept trait. There isnt a single build in tools that didnt take either Kit Refinement, Static Discharge, or Speedy Kits. Master traits arent awful but are usually good for one Scope MIGHT have been on that list if it actually worked. I’ve seen builds with 30 in traits that took those three only. Then Static Discharge really is next on the chopping block and the cooldown on Speedy Kits will get doubled.

Power Wrench is also good if you want to make a lot use of the toolkit. Armor Mods and Adrenal Implant can still be good, but I don’t think Adrenal Implant stacks with vigor (easily obtainable if you use Invigorating Speed with Speedy Kits) and retaliation is a boon which we have fairly reliable access to. Given that Enduring Damage is really only relevant in PvE (and possibly not even then), the Grandmaster section of Tools doesn’t seem very attractive. I guess you could use Enduring Damage to boost your engagement burst, but ironically I doubt that’s the most effective way to go about it.

But when you have SD, KR, Speedy Gadgets, Speedy Kits in the adept tier, there’s often no point in going past that.

Yeah, I had a typo in there. I meant to say that the Masters are each good for specific builds. Which, I have no problem with. I use Power Wrench now. And I’ve heard of players using the Trait that tosses Med Kit skills so that they can self cleanse when they are immobilized. Crit chance bros are still patiently waiting for scope to work. But the grandmaster traits never really feel worth it to me. Not at the level they currently are. You could have moved both of those down to Adept, and replaced it with the old KR and Static Discharge. Those two skills are not only powerful, but trait defining. Players who take those traits actively utilize them! Adrenal implant is nice, but as you said, does not stack with Vigor, which is easily obtainable with 10p in Elixirs (better not rely on that either…) Armor Mods… I’m not a big fan of retal, but I’m sure it gets some damage in if you’re built for it. But 5s of retal or 7.5 endurance per second doesnt get me excited as much as “Remove condition and heal, cripple and bleed, spam explosions, or remove another condition and burn when you use the kits belonging to your class” or “Utilize skills from your class-specific bar to do more damage to multiple opponents.” Sure I’d be a little sad that I cant take SD and KR at once but some things just make more sense.

And I refuse to believe that this was a lazy attempt at balance. I really don’t want to think that. I really wish someone on the team cried tears at night or poured out a 40oz for what they believed they had to do to fix this.

Edit: I am now imagining Colin pouring out a bottle on the ground…and it’s too funny to me because I have no idea what he looks like without that giant smile on his face.

I for one am sick and tired of having to come up with new ways to work around the class’ deficiencies after every patch. The tinkering with KR ( in Feb and March ) is more of a last straw thing then the sole cause of frustration.

I could go HGH and conditions like pretty much every other Engineer who’s still playing I guess, but I really don’t want to and that means I’ll just play one of my other characters instead.

The new effects are actually interesting and might be useful if it weren’t for the shared invisible cooldown making it difficult to get the strong effects. The issue is that the new kit refinement cannot fill the roles that the old one did (namely, condition removal).

So the issue is that engineers can now choose two out of three of the following: effective condition removal; a stunbreaker; more than 1 kit. If you’re a smart tournament player you’ll choose effective condition removal and a stunbreaker, aka the HGH nades build.

Incidentally we do still have a pretty good conditions spec that isn’t HGH nades. Just mentioning that because all the talk is strictly SD or HGH cond/power nades. Our straight P/P or P/S and FT conditions build is still pretty good, you just may have to make adjustments such as taking the heal turret for condition removal to make up for the KR nerf.