…kits aren’t an ingrained, core aspect of the profession. They’re certainly powerful utilities, and just like warrior banners and guardian consecrations, they get an inordinate amount of attention compared to other options, but that doesn’t make them a core mechanic—and there’s nothing stopping ArenaNet from releasing kits on another profession in the next expansion, or putting banners in engineer.
Classes are not limited to one, and only one, mechanic. Thieves have steal and initiative, revs have legend swap and energy… Some class mechanics are spetial skills (f1-5) some are not…
You’re right that classes often have more than one “core” mechanic, and that sometimes relates to a managed resource like adrenaline/rage, astral power, energy, and initiative. Illusions, in fact, could arguably be both a core mechanic and a skill resource.
Engineer does, in fact, have more than one “core” profession mechanic, but it’s not kits; it’s the toolbelt and the function gyro. And this is what you’re not understanding.
The purpose of elite specializations is to add new, different things to the profession—or enhance existing core mechanics (e.g., rage or continuum split). So yes, rangers got new pets, warriors got new burst skills, and engineers got new toolbelt skills and the function gyro.
It’s also true that engineers don’t have a weapon swap, and it’s true that’s arguably because of kits, but that doesn’t mean that kits are a core profession mechanic, and it doesn’t mean that they can’t add a specialization down the road that locks us out of kits while granting us weapon swap.
I’ve read the entire thread and it surprises me that no one has brought up the glaringly obvious difference between Engineers’ utility compared to that of other classes.
Engineers (core) are literally the only (core) class that have 4 utility skill types and 5 non-elite skills per type. Every other class has 5 utility skill types and 4 non-elite skills per type.
This is the fundamental difference between an Engineer and every other class and why you cannot equate the Engineer’s utility with any other classes’ utility. We have literally ONE LESS UTILITY TYPE. And that is because we have an extra skill per type to make up for it. But I ask you this: why deviate from the formula of 5 types of utility and 4 skills per type that every other class adheres to?
Because, in the original design, we had 4 toolbelt slots, not 5. Our toolbelt was supposed to serve as the (quasi) 5th utility type and our alternate utility slots. Why the need for alternative utility slots? Because our 7-9 utility keys double as weapon swap. Because the engineer has access to 3 additional weapon slots, we are locked out of an alternate weapon. (See: elementalist and the attunement mechanic balance.) It is also the reason we have the fewest weapons. Our utilities are supposed to “make up” for our small weapon pool and in order to have the same access to actual utility, our toolbelt had 4 slots.
It is only with the NPE that we got the 5th toolbelt slot for balance reasons: because we got an elite kit now. However, I would like to remind everyone that despite this, in our utility skills list, we are still one skill type short compared to all other classes. You have to only look at the UI when selecting utilities for the engineer. Everyone else have their utilities grouped by type (all utilities of the same type are in the same row), the engineer does not. Why? Because one of our utilities (kits) are supposed to function as a weapon. Toolbelt compensates our utility loss.
TL;DR – Engineer utility is not mechanically equivalent to all other classes’ utility. (It is a false equivalency when the mechanics are clearly not the same.) Kits are a core class mechanic that happens to take up the utility slot, and the toolbelt is a compensation for our kit class mechanic.
This is what makes us weird and different. Furthermore, yes, our kits are the equivalent of weapons. That is why, to get back to the OP’s original point, we should be given a new kit per elite specialization. Every other class gets new weapons, we should be getting new kits.