Guild Wars 2

imaginary.6241:

Explosive 20 – Turrets that explode push back foes. That one is pretty fun, and it makes it seem like the developers want you to blow up your turrets (they blow up and knockback when getting destroyed as well).

On the contrary, I would consider that evidence that Arena Net doesn’t want turrets to be completely worthless at the point of destruction. Think about it; if you depend on turrets for whatever effect, such as CC or damage, and then they get destroyed you’re basically out of luck. However having said turrets deal damage and knockback foes on destruction would lessen the blow somewhat.

Perhaps it is just a simple case of perspective; the way I see it a given skill, like a turret, is primarily intended to be that skill. A turret is a turret, not a knockback bomb. I see additive or contextual effects like that and using the healing turret to exploit its own combo field to be extras, not the primary function of the skill. I mean honestly; if Arena Net wanted one of our healing skill options to be an AOE heal why not just give us an AOE heal instead of dressing it up as a turret?

A quick question about damage:

I’m looking over the wiki and I find that turret damage does not scale with our stats or weapons, no surprise there, but conditions applied by turrets do. Doesn’t this mean that, theoretically, a turret build would benefit more from gearing for condition damage than power? It seems to me, at only a cursory glance, that a flame turret and overcharged rifle turret being used with high condition damage would be a superior DPS build, especially when paired with pistols.

Rozbuska.5263:

Well you can now make about 40g/hour in SE p1:-)

People keep saying that, but I’ve never seen it happen. I think it is a myth. Either that or someone has around 5000% magic find.

Okay, no secret at this point that I am completely fed-up with kits. So I am asking for advice on a decent turret build I can try out. I still don’t like the idea given the ridiculous number of bugs turrets have, and I still don’t believe for a moment that this upcoming update will do anything to actually fix turrets, but at this point I’ll try just about anything. Besides, I did often play an off-ritualist (meaning ritualist as a secondary profession) in the original game, and got a fair bit of use out of ritualist spirits. So with a turret engineer being the closest this game has to that I figured I’d try it.

Anyway, to anyone willing to offer a little advice I do have a few stipulations that I either cannot or will not change.

1; I use celestial armor. I won’t be changing that, I don’t care how cheap or easy it is to do so. I didn’t spend a month crafting celestial armor to not wear it.

2; I refuse to use the healing turret primarily as a blast finisher. I disagree completely with the notion that setting that turret only to blow it up a split second later is its intended use, and refuse on principle to make use of that tactic. A turret is supposed to be set up to provide a consistent tactical advantage at a given location, so I would be using turrets to actually use them, not just place > overcharge > detonate > repeat.

Beyond that, go nuts.

Before I start, don’t say tank or healer. That isn’t what this is about. There is a difference between play-style and dedicated role.

Of late I’ve been rather enthusiastically complaining on the engineer boards about recent realizations and problems I’ve had with and about the profession. Needless to say I’ve been getting less than helpful response for the most part, but ultimately it had a positive effect; I now know what my problem is with Guild Wars 2. In short; at some point in the –presumably early- development of this game Arena Net decided they would no longer support my old play-style, and stripped the fundamental building blocks of that style from the game completely.

Back before release there was a group of ranger players complaining on the Guru forums about how being forced to bring pets now stripped them of their old play-style, and as such they “didn’t have a home” in Guild Wars 2. And while I didn’t count myself among them then, as in spite of being a former ranger player my problems were not the same as theirs, I now understand where they were coming from, as I too have come to realize that I “don’t have a home” here either.

As such this has formed a question in my mind; how many people feel that way? Has that feeling gone away after release, or are there others like me who came to feel that way after release? I open it up for discussion, not to complain, not to criticize or make demands, but simply to discuss. Have you been forced by the game’s design to give up your old play-style? Did you come from the original Guild Wars like me, or another MMO perhaps? What was your old style, and why do you feel like it has absent here?

google.3709:

and being forced 30 points into a trait line kills build diversity, something the engineers has right now.

Under my idea you only need to invest thirty points into one line if you want to use Kit Refinement. If you currently feel that you need Kit Refinement for your engineer then you’ve just made my point about engineer build diversity for me. Thank you.

Deacon.9725:

Anymras.5729:

On the Flame Turret: No Turret’s Overcharge will activate without targets, except for Healing Turret.

Somebody thought it was a good idea to bind Overcharges to firing cycles, which are currently bugged anyway, as far as I am aware. I’m not going to get into the habit of testing all the Turret bugs every time a patch happens, because there are a lot of bugs, so I’m not sure whether they fixed this but I don’t think they did.

This should be fixed with the upcoming patch that makes turrets fire on the target the Engineer him/herself is currently attacking. I don’t know why the smoke screen doesn’t proc outside of combat, since you can get area stealth from the smoke bomb/shield 4 combo very very reliably.

It won’t be fixed. Normally this is where I would insert a snide remark about Arena Net’s intention or ability, but this time I don’t have to. Arena Net themselves said this won’t be changed; all they are doing is making turrets prioritize the player’s target like every other pet in the game has been doing since release. And Arena Net themselves said that things like the firing cycle or will not be effected by this patch.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

I agree, it makes NO sense that its a Light field when it HEALS people. Which i stated in another topic. Why they made it a light field i dont know.

It is a light field because Arena Net is simply, objectively bad at this.

It will stay a light field because Arena Net doesn’t care.

Just slot runes of purity or generosity and be done with it. Hoping Arena Net will fix anything is almost as pointless as posting in the suggestions forum. You do know this sub-forum only exists because Arena Net got tired of seeing suggestion threads, right?

The dervish and the ritualist
The dervish….well I’ve heard good things and it could be cool to see an updated version. As far as the ritualist goes however that was one of the few mages that I didn’t mind being flashy, and I often used it as my sub-profession in the original Guild Wars. Being a “hard core” role player having my character (the reincarnation of my GW1 character) become a ritualist actually makes a strange kind of sense because of my history with the profession. So yeah…there is that.

Drakkon.4782:

-snip-

Well thank you for being respectful, and I agree with the punctuation issue, it only seems to suffer when I allow myself to become overly emotionally invested in a given topic. That said I’ll try to be concise here.

Heavy Armor feeling sluggish
It’s just that; it feels sluggish. I know they might have objectively the same overall movement speed, but it doesn’t feel that. This is actually a problem that norn players are very familiar with because it is built into their race selection. Partly it is an animation issue, and partly it is a size issue. When you have two characters moving the exact same speed, but one is small like an asura or a light armor wearer, and the other is large like a norn or heavy armor wearer, the heavier one will always feel slower simply because in order to keep up the smaller/lighter character will have more exaggerated animations and a longer stride, making them feel faster.

Mages are too flashy
Basically all that needs to be said; I don’t like all the flash. It is entirely personal preference, but there it is. Flash is built into most MMO magic users, and I don’t like flash. Not much else to say there, although I am willing to make exceptions for certain types of mages (who sadly don’t exist here).

The ranger and my old play-style
In a word; preparations. You imply you played a ranger in the original Guild Wars, so I guess I don’t need to tell you what those were. For those who don’t know but may be reading this; a preparation was a ranger skill type that could be activated to temporarily alter all ranger attacks, and could have drastic effects on how the profession played. I loved them, and loved finding new ways to use them to dial my builds up to eleven, as the saying goes. Sadly those skills don’t exist here, with the closest equivalent being the thief’s venoms.

This was partly why I chose the thief as my first character, but I soon realized that venoms were only a pale imitation of what preparations were. Venoms only apply a condition or two to your next few attacks, preparations were so much more than that. Preparations could turn single attacks into AOEs, they could make single strikes hit for multiple damage “ticks,” they could do extra damage based on the boons you have or strip boons from your targets. They could make your arrows explode into AOEs if blocked, or never miss. They were, at least to me, incredible. And Guild Wars 2 has nothing like them.

The thief sucks
Nothing to say about stealth aside from the fact that as a huge fan of stealth games, I find the concept of hitting a button and turning invisible an insult to the word stealth. As far as my preference for ranged combat…wait until you get to the point when you don’t have enough initiative to down any random mob without spamming the auto-attack for a minute and a half, and then realize that the only way to keep your initiative up is to invest at least fifteen points into Trickery, take a specific major adept trait, and spam steal whenever it comes off cool down. Have fun not being able to use a ranged build.

Engineer is getting boring and frustrating
Believe it or not the reason I feel in love with the engineer is those kits I’ve been complaining about lately. I loved the versatility I got from them, built my character around their use. I have a kit/elixir build for PvE that is fantastic, and I have no real complaints about it. Well, except that I’ve been using that exact build for the last fifty levels and it is getting more than a little old and repetitive. I’ve spent the better part of the last four months pestering Arena Net about fixing the cosmetic issues with kits, like hobo sacks and not being able to display our hard earned weapons skins, and now I just don’t give a kitten anymore.

I realized that Arena Net was never going to address those issues, so I decided, since I really do want to experience this fabled “cosmetic progression” and perhaps go for a legendary one day, that I would just change my build. Loose the kits and try something else, maybe even see that Mystic Rifle I forged our of boredom or those achievement pistols I was so excited to unlock. Then I realized just how dependent the engineer truly was on kits. Yeah I had mentioned it before, complained about it, but I wasn’t really prepared for it. So now…yeah; I am sick of kits and yet the profession is so closely tied to them that I can’t just stop using them. Frustrating is an understatement.

Ravak.8912:

Any love for OSX?

(please post OSX alternative if any)

There is actually a very simple solution to all OSX tech and game problems.

Step 1; toss your currently system in the trash.

Step 2; buy a PC and run windows.

Adamantium.3682:

Arkham Creed.7358:

Penguin.5197:

Arkham Creed.7358:

By now I assume you guys have figured out, from the trailer that image is taken from, that he is actually a NPC using a non-player kit that seems to fire oil rather than flame.

I’m thinking this can be how anet is going to try to add more skills to the game while making it feel natural aka Living story feel. Instead of just patching it in, players would see npcs use those new skills and by the next patch, the players have stolen that technology/reversed engineered those skills to use themselves.

That sounds nice on paper, but it makes two rather ridiculous assumptions.

1; you assume that Arena Net is capable of rolling out content other than short term, low impact, RNG based cash-grabs.

2; you assume Arena Net has any intention of doing anything nice for engineer players….ever.

I really question why you waste your time playing this game, or at the very least this profession.

As far as the profession is concerned….

1; Heavy armor classes feel to sluggish for my tastes.

2; I don’t like playing mages because I feel they are too flashy.

3; The ranger upsets me on a very deep, personal, GW1 fanboy level due to my history as a ranger in the original game, and how my old play-style is no longer possible.

4; I can’t stand “MMO stealth” and prefer to play a ranged class, something very difficult with a class who’s primary form of “energy management” is a forced melee mechanic, so the thief is out.

5; the engineer started out fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed it for a number of months. However recent problems and realizations have caused me to become increasingly frustrated with the profession.

6; currently neither the ritualist nor the dervish are playable professions.

Penguin.5197:

Arkham Creed.7358:

By now I assume you guys have figured out, from the trailer that image is taken from, that he is actually a NPC using a non-player kit that seems to fire oil rather than flame.

I’m thinking this can be how anet is going to try to add more skills to the game while making it feel natural aka Living story feel. Instead of just patching it in, players would see npcs use those new skills and by the next patch, the players have stolen that technology/reversed engineered those skills to use themselves.

That sounds nice on paper, but it makes two rather ridiculous assumptions.

1; you assume that Arena Net is capable of rolling out content other than short term, low impact, RNG based cash-grabs.

2; you assume Arena Net has any intention of doing anything nice for engineer players….ever.

Anymras.5729:

I don’t even have anything to add to the debate here that hasn’t been added already, but there’s one thing I find amusing/interesting from a ‘Wow, the staff on these boards are weird’ standpoint:

They moved this thread to the Engineer boards from…I think this was in Living Story, and then moved a ‘Make Toolbelt skills selectable’ thread to the Suggestion boards.
They deleted a thread talking about the Engineer from the GW2 Discussion boards, and then moved it to here when the deletion was appealed.

I know this is off-topic, but is anybody else starting to wonder about the staff?

You mean this staff? [img]http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/308/125/1ee.jpg[/img]

By now I assume you guys have figured out, from the trailer that image is taken from, that he is actually a NPC using a non-player kit that seems to fire oil rather than flame.

Never going to happen and Arena Net themselves have already told us all way. They have already said that they focus their development time on things that effect the largest possible percentage of the community, they focus on balancing only the most played classes and put issue that effect lesser played classes and races on the back burning until they stumble blindly into some extra time. Arena Net; by their own admission, only care about the majority.

What does that have to do with this thread? Simple; MacOS users are a gaming minority. And Linux? Don’t make me laugh. Oh sure both happen, but how often? Exactly how big of a percentage are we talking about here? Obviously not big enough.

And because the mods like to move, delete, and hide my threads I give you this link.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Tool-Belt-Freedom-1/first#post2899715

Make Tool Belt skills freely selectable.

Nothing else needs to be changed. The individual balance and power of traits and tool belt skills can be saved for another day. Tool Belt slots can continue to unlock in time with utility slots. Tool Belt skills can continue to unlock as bonuses when purchasing their “parent” utility skills. The only difference, the only change, is that we may now selection what four Tool Belt skills we want to use with impunity, regardless of our utility selections.

I have two primary arguments for this, the first being outlined above. I will briefly cover it again now simply to be concise. In short; I think that having Tool Belt skills locked in with our utility skills denies us a great deal of build diversity and customization, and undermines the intended purpose of allowing us to still have our utility slots in spite of the unspoken need to slot kits regardless of our personal preferences. Making these Tool Belt skills freely selectable solves both of those issues.

The second reason is pretty basic as well; it just makes more sense. Think about real life for a moment. Think about mechanics and engineers, plumbers and carpenters. These men and women wear tool belts, but why? What benefit does that garment offer? Well clearly it allows ready access to commonly used tools, or tools selected specifically for the task at hand without having to bring their entire collection. A plumber can bring a large wrench with him on his belt without having to lug around that heavy tool box and his entire wrench collection. A carpenter can bring a hammer without having to strap his entire workshop on his back. So it only makes sense that here, on Guild Wars 2, an engineer should be able to carry around a few grenades to barrage their enemies without having to march around everywhere they go with their entire explosive kitten nal.

Recently I posted an idea to alter the engineer primary mechanic from the tool belt to simply being F-bar kits similar to elementalist attunements. This idea was less than well received, but some of the feedback has led me to an alternative idea.

Generally speaking the attitude about the engineer’s Tool Belt system tends to center around one of two beliefs; the first being that the engineer primary mechanic is simply having a lot of skills. That the tool belt is not meant to be some manner of significant feature in and of itself, but rather the importance of it is the ability to have four additional skill slots. The other belief, and the one I personally subscribe to, is that the tool belt is merely a form of compensation, or a consolation prize. In essence Arena Net realized from the start how important kits were to our profession, and understood that they kit system forced us to sacrifice one or more utility slots. As such the Tool Belt is a way of compensating for that, and allowing us to have those slots back.

The problem I have with both of those arguments is best summed up in a single world; choice. Such a huge draw of both Guild Wars 2 and the MMO genre in general is the ability to –to a point- fashion your own custom character builds; to use the tools provided to you to create a character template that at least feels unique, and allows us the illusion of playing our own personalized characters. However the current kit/Tool Belt system run directly counter to this. So many times people have told me, in response to recent arguments, that we do have choice; that we can choose what kits to bring, and how many to bring. All the while oblivious to the fact that every single one of their suggestions still carries with it the necessity of kits. We’re free to choose any build we want, so long as we have at least one kit.

You can have any color [Model T] you want, as long as it’s black.
-Henry Ford

Likewise the Tool Belt is only an illusion of choice, and a poor one at that. We have no real freedom with the Tool Belt; instead being forced to take whatever skills it gives us based on our utility selections. And since we are forced to take at least one kit, that means we are in turn forced to take at least one kit determined Tool Belt skill. This is, at least to me, a pretty big problem and directly counter to one of the main reasons I play MMOs in the first place. So I have a deceptively simple solution.

Yoshifxe.8346:

If the class was designed to swap between kits like an elementalist swaps attunements, then the class should have kits as a profession mechanic and not as a utility where it is now.

Basically, if kits were meant to be a part of EVERY engineer build. Make it so that every engineer has them with EVERY build. They can CHOOSE to take it out at ANY time. This will validate what they said back in December with classes.
If they don’t want to do this and have it be a rehash of the elementalist that’s fine, but then the tool belts skills should have more options to us. It doesn’t feel very impressive that I have this one skill that I never use, but I have to have it because my build requires its counterpart.

Oh thank God….someone actually gets it….

Aberrant.6749:

Ok… what is the point behind arguing over all of semantics? Can some one for the love of Dwayna tell me?

‘Cause I’m still just like…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFZrzg62Zj0

If you think eng is weak overall then just say that and why instead of all of this stuff about what is the official class mechanic.

Jason.9643:

just saying that engineers doesnt isnt the same as other professions in a specific ways doesnt clearly explains why its a bad design during gameplay.

^ Exactly why I find all of this to just be pointless bickering over semantics thus far.

Firstly, I don’t know who you’re quoting there but that grammar is god awful.

Secondly, this isn’t a semantics argument; people just keep going back to that because they don’t like legitimate criticism of the game/this profession and it is easier to keep bickering about the terms used rather than face the real problem.

As far as that problem I’ll spell it out, again.

Possibility A; the tool belt is what we are supposed to be relying on the most and creating our builds around, not kits, and yet it is so unimpressive and underpowered that most people would rather claim kits are our mechanic. This is an example of horrible design.

Possibility B; kits are our primary mechanic that we the profession is balanced around and that we are supposed to make extensive use of. However being utility skills this forces us to sacrifice both build diversity and build customization to use these skills. Likewise it creates the possibility of players entering combat without their primary mechanic and thus greatly reducing (or “gimping”) their effectiveness, much like a ranger trying to enter combat without their pet (something they are mechanically unable to do). This is an example of horrible implementation.

Either way the engineer has a rather glaring flaw and is objectively broken. But there is no good answer here; no positive way to look at it. Either we are badly designed or badly implemented. Period. Most of the engineer loyalist here don’t want to admit that or talk about it, so they keep going back to the words I used to express this problem instead of the problem itself. Sort of like how thief players don’t like admitting that the initiative mechanic forces them to invest heavily into Trickery, thus limiting possible viable builds, and that steal forcing them into melee range invalidates ranged play-styles.

google.3709:

Eles are already forced into 30 arcana to make better use of their class mechanic, do you really want the same thing for engineers ? and turning kit refinement into an evasive arcana ? :/

Still better than our current mechanic of getting a few extra, yet universally considered ultra weak/underpowered utility skills that we have no control over selecting.

google.3709:

and besides, what would be the benefit or even the point of these changes ?

Review time….

Arkham Creed.7358:

Conclusion
Primarily this change would justify our current profession balance and legitimize the reason why engineers cannot currently use weapon swapping. However I feel that these changes, such as adding endurance gain when toggling kits and triggering kit based Tool Belt skills when kits are activated, would greatly improve the overall power of kits, as well as strengthening non-kit centric builds by freeing up our utility skill slots and providing easier access to useful and improved traits.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; I don’t like not being allowed to use weapon swapping because I might slot a kit. As long as kits are an optional part of our profession being denied weapon swapping is unjustifiable. Likewise if kits are a necessary part of the profession than being forced to sacrifice our utility slots to use them is likewise unjustifiable.

Chaba.5410:

Arkham,

Preemptive addendum? LOLOLOLOLOL man, you continue to assume a certain position is being taken by others.

Who is it not dealing with facts again?

Right…please direct your attention to…

Kirschwasser.3972:

If everybody is getting it but you… you might be the one wrong.

Chaba.5410:

Arkham, you remain highly disingenuous by ignoring established design patterns that do not fit your argument, such as the traitline certain traits are placed in. And rather than take time to understand what others are saying, you immediately assume they do not agree with you.

Well you are right that I don’t agree with you about right and proper ways. It’s absurdism to tell people in an online game that they are not playing right and proper because they are not doing something the way you would, as if everyone is supposed to play the same opening move you use in chess. Hacks would be the improper way to play a game.

I think you have your argument backwards. I’m not saying kits are not the primary mechanic because I don’t want them to be, I’m saying they’re not because they are objectively not. Everyone else is insisting their delusions are reality simply because of a personal preference. I don’t know how much more clearly to put it; for every other profession in the game the primary mechanic has some manner of exclusive function bound to the F# key. Mesmer’s shatter skills, commanding a ranger’s pets, necro death shroud, warrior burst skills, guardian virtues, so on and so forth. Yet engineer kits are not exclusive to the F# keys; they are slotting into utility slots.

Mesmers don’t have utility shatters.
Guardians don’t have utility virtues.
Warriors don’t have utility burst skills.

While it is true that each kit does in fact have a F# function added to it, you have to look at the primary effect. A ranger technically can command their pets by utility skills through shouts, but shouts are no the core control system for pets; the F# keys are. In the same way we have F# uses for our kits, but the core use of those kits is obviously actually toggling them on and using their skills, and that is a utility function.

This is not a preference I just made up. Kits aren’t primarily used for their toggle effects because I prefer them that way; that is how they are designed. Warrior burst skills aren’t bound to F1 because I prefer it that way; that is how they are designed. And engineer kits are not the primary mechanic of the engineer because you prefer it that way; they weren’t designed that way. If they were we would slot them for their tool belt functions or toggle them on with the F# keys.

I know that “facts” are something that many people struggle with and often confuse with opinions on the internet, but when you actually step away from your preferences and examine the engineer from a logical point of view, using the only point of reference and comparison we have (other professions in this same game) it becomes clear that it is an objective fact that engineer kits are not and were not designed to be used as the primary engineer mechanic.

Preemptive Addendum
And confirmation bias due to the large number of people that agree with you is a straw man argument at best, and a moron’s crutch at worse. There was a time when nearly everyone in the known world knew for a fact that the night sky was a thick blanket thrown over the world by the Gods that simply had a billion tiny holes cut into it.

Chaba.5410:

Please, when you don’t back your opinion up by describing what you think is the right and proper way to play something, you just look like an elitist fool best filed into the ignore pile. I do improper things with my engineer all the time and am loving it.
/facepalm

When you refuse to accept an established design pattern present in every other instance as a baseline for no other reason than you simply don’t want to, you make yourself look like a delusional fool prone to believing anything that makes them feel better regardless of the reality of the given situation.

tigirius.9014:

hardly. buff elixirs and gadgets to actually do something when we use them and buff all toolbelt skills, they are weak and useless for the most part. If it weren’t for HGH and condi removal no one would bother with elixirs at all! And please fixit so that engis no longer have to stack enormous amounts of might just to keep up with everyone else on the damage meter! Seriously, it’s tiresome.

You and I agree, but since Arena Net has proven themselves to have zero interest in that….see the opening post.

Here.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Make-kits-the-engineer-profession-mechanic/first#post2893545

Give some feedback before it is moved or deleted.

Step 3; traits
The engineer fifth trait line, tools, is to be first remained Satchel. The newly named Satchel line is largely unchanged in terms of its passive effects, with the only notable differences being that it now reduces Kit swapping cooldowns rather than the now non-existent Tool Belt. Likewise the minor traits Adrenaline Pump (using Tool Belt skills recharges 10% of endurance) and Inertial Converter (Tool Belt skills recharge at 25% health) and Enduring Damage now function for kit swapping instead of Tool Belt skills.

Finally certain major traits within the line will need to be moved around a bit, and some rebalanced. For example the Tools trait Scope (Gain 10% critical hit chance against targets further than 600 units away) and the Firearms trait Juggernaut (You gain 200 toughness while wielding a flamethrower. In addition, gain might for 15 seconds every 3 seconds, as long as you remain in this weapon kit) would simply trade places, as both are currently Master level major traits of their respective lines. The concept here is to fold most, if not all, kit based traits into the new Satchel line, while at the same time strengthening other build aspects by making it easier to obtain useful traits. For example a rifle based engineer focusing on a ‘zerker style of direct damage would want to downplay kits in favor of stacking power and crit damage, so having more ready access to Scope would be of tremendous benefit to them.

Other traits would be moved within the Satchel line and have their functions reworked. A prime example here would be the popular trait Kit Refinement (Equipping a kit creates an attack or a spell), as I see this trait being bumped from Adept all the way up to Grandmaster, with the “attack or spell” it triggers being the old Tool Belt functions of kits. For example using Med Kit would heal the player with the equivalent effect of a self-heal, while activating the Elixir Gun would vent a Healing Mist that give regeneration to nearby allies and breaks stun. Activating the Flamethrower would grant automatic burning on one’s next few attacks, the Bomb Kit would trigger a powerful explosion with launch at the players location just like the old Big Ol’ Bomb, and so on.

Conclusion
Primarily this change would justify our current profession balance and legitimize the reason why engineers cannot currently use weapon swapping. However I feel that these changes, such as adding endurance gain when toggling kits and triggering kit based Tool Belt skills when kits are activated, would greatly improve the overall power of kits, as well as strengthening non-kit centric builds by freeing up our utility skill slots and providing easier access to useful and improved traits.

Reasoning:
It is no secret on the engineer forums that I dislike (to put it mildly) the way our profession mechanic, the tool belt, has been implemented into the game, and I take issue with such a high percentage of the community disregarding this in order to pretend that kits are our primary mechanic simply because we’re unviable without them, and ignoring how this means we mush sacrifice utility slots to maintain that viability. However that is an argument I can’t win no matter how much facts and logic are on my side, so rather than continue to bang my head against a wall pointlessly I’ve instead desided to pled for Arena Net to do what they apparently wanted to do in the first place; make it so kits actually are our profession mechanic.

I’m sure Arena Net has some old design documents laying around about how they intended to do that, but I figured I would throw my idea out here for everyone’s consideration. So without further delay I present my vision for kits as the engineer profession mechanic in three –not so- simple steps.

Step 1; destroy the Tool Belt
Seriously, get rid of it. Just drop the whole thing. Gone. Bye-bye. Ctrl + Delete. Goodbye.

Some tool belt skills are worth saving however, so for these one of three things can be done depending on how valuable the skill is.

1; Fold the skill into its parent utility skill. Example: Elixir mist. Instead of drinking elixirs, engineers now toss them like ninja smoke bombs at their feet, causing the on-use effect to themselves and the on-toss effect to surrounding allies.

2; Make them standalone skills. Example: Mine Field. The exact same as the Mine Field tool belt, only a standalone skill, perhaps replacing Throw Mine.

3; Make them chain skills. Example: Place Turret > Overload Turret > Detonate Turret.

Step 2; place kits on the F-bar

I feel that two F# slots would be fine, but I can see some players wanting to push it as far as four. If three or four is made available I would recommend making the first slot, F1, a secondary healing slot that will accept only healing/support based kits. These new slots, depending on how many a players gets at max level, would unlock gradually as the player levels up in the same way as elementalist attunements. Kits themselves would be arranged into tiers and perhaps types, with the Med Kit and Elixir Gun both being set as healing kits, and exclusively used for F1 if the healing slot idea is used. Like the slots themselves kits unlock as the player gains levels, with low tier kits unlock first and high tier kits unlocking at latter levels. Obviously players have the freedom to –when out of combat- choose what kits they have slotted in, exactly as they work as utility skills. Finally the act of kit-swapping is to be given a fifteen second cool down to bring them in line with elementalist attunements.

Deacon.9725:

Arkham Creed.7358:

Deacon.9725:

-snip-

Firstly, I find your comment about “earliest stages of non-Anet participation in this game” to be an odd one considering that Arena Net made the game, and as such as never “not participated” in it in one form or another. Secondly, in interest of getting this back on track, perhaps I should elaborate on my problem further. Consider the following.

Arena Net has neither the manpower nor willpower to address every issue plaguing every profession, and have themselves admitted to that much. By their own admission they primarily focusing on problems in descending order from more important to least, or rather from most widely reaching within the community to least. Now it is a known fact that the engineers are a minority profession, with strong speculation to be the “least played profession.” What this means is that, logically, we already get very little attention by the development team, and our problems no matter how glaring have already been declared low priority by default.

Now consider this; should Arena Net work their way through their backlog of problems enough to actually get some time to spare for us lowly engineers, are they more likely to give us a thorough overview and address major problems, or simply identify and address the issues and skills most widely used and talked about by the community? I say the latter; they are likely to address “popular” skills first, leading to a situation wherein the vocal minority has the most influence over the future development of our profession. And this is where my problem lies.

I feel like major profession-breaking issues like our primary mechanic being so underwhelming it has been replaced in the mind of most players with a common utility skill type, and the horrible effect that has on style-of-play (not to be confused with individual play-style) and profession balance should be deemed high priority and fixed first, even before other issues I myself have been complaining about for months. However so long as the community chooses to sweep this problem under the rug and pretend it is not an issue Arena Net will remain blind to it, addressing issues of lesser overall mechanical impact first and only further unbalancing our profession and invalidating our actual mechanic and all non-kit based play-styles and build options.

In short it is already unlikely that Arena Net will ever bother to fix this issue, and the communities refusal to acknowledge it as a legitimate problem in favor of propagating common misconceptions and confining themselves to pre-established popular builds further reduces those odds. Basically, to be frank, if the engineer is never truly fixed it is your fault. Hence my frustration and lack of patience with the community.

So at last we get you to acknowledge the entirety of your issue with this display: You don’t like the way the Engineer plays on a fundamental level.

Well, again, I find it incredibly disingenuous to say that the profession is BROKEN as a fact, and that it’s our fault because we simply don’t agree with you. I think what would be much more honest and correct would be this phrase: "the communities (sic) refusal to acknowledge it as a legitimate problem in favor of playing within the confines of the profession build further reduces those odds of me getting what I want in this profession. Basically, to be frank, if the engineer is never truly the profession I want it to be it is your fault. Hence my frustration and lack of patience with the community. "

There. Now it actually makes sense, and fully exposes the argument as a personal opinion rather than a misguided attempt to make your own ideas dogmatically “the only right way.”

Granted, I think that there is a lot of validity to expressing your opinions on what could shift within the profession to make your playtime more enjoyable. Under that guise, making a strong case for a beefier toolbet skill would be incredibly valid and intriguing in the debate. I would be interested to see you tackle that in an honest opinion setting.

Your entire post is invalidated by my opening post. I didn’t make those rules, and I didn’t create those patterns. Kits are not our primary mechanic and being balanced so heavily around them is a design flaw. The fact that we continue to be so heavily balanced around kits is not because that is their intent, but because -due to popular use- those are the only skills Arena Net has been paying any attention to.

Deacon.9725:

-snip-

Firstly, I find your comment about “earliest stages of non-Anet participation in this game” to be an odd one considering that Arena Net made the game, and as such as never “not participated” in it in one form or another. Secondly, in interest of getting this back on track, perhaps I should elaborate on my problem further. Consider the following.

Arena Net has neither the manpower nor willpower to address every issue plaguing every profession, and have themselves admitted to that much. By their own admission they primarily focusing on problems in descending order from more important to least, or rather from most widely reaching within the community to least. Now it is a known fact that the engineers are a minority profession, with strong speculation to be the “least played profession.” What this means is that, logically, we already get very little attention by the development team, and our problems no matter how glaring have already been declared low priority by default.

Now consider this; should Arena Net work their way through their backlog of problems enough to actually get some time to spare for us lowly engineers, are they more likely to give us a thorough overview and address major problems, or simply identify and address the issues and skills most widely used and talked about by the community? I say the latter; they are likely to address “popular” skills first, leading to a situation wherein the vocal minority has the most influence over the future development of our profession. And this is where my problem lies.

I feel like major profession-breaking issues like our primary mechanic being so underwhelming it has been replaced in the mind of most players with a common utility skill type, and the horrible effect that has on style-of-play (not to be confused with individual play-style) and profession balance should be deemed high priority and fixed first, even before other issues I myself have been complaining about for months. However so long as the community chooses to sweep this problem under the rug and pretend it is not an issue Arena Net will remain blind to it, addressing issues of lesser overall mechanical impact first and only further unbalancing our profession and invalidating our actual mechanic and all non-kit based play-styles and build options.

In short it is already unlikely that Arena Net will ever bother to fix this issue, and the communities refusal to acknowledge it as a legitimate problem in favor of propagating common misconceptions and confining themselves to pre-established popular builds further reduces those odds. Basically, to be frank, if the engineer is never truly fixed it is your fault. Hence my frustration and lack of patience with the community.

Aberrant.6749:

So… 2 pages of a semantics fight pretty much? Or did I miss something?

I’m not entirely sure you or anyone else has, no. But you’re acting that way. It is just easier to dismiss this and call it a semantics argument rather than address the real issue at hand. Oh well, my own fault for assuming critical thinking from a bunch of lemmings. One or two guys say kits are the primary mechanic of our profession, and whip up a few useful builds with them, and suddenly everyone follows suit, never once stopping to consider what that does or what that says about our profession.

Lightsbane.9012:

Arkham Creed.7358:

Lightsbane.9012:

Arkham Creed.7358:

Vayne.8563:

Arkham Creed.7358:

Vayne.8563:

You’re doing a fine job. It won’t change anything, but have at it.

Given enough time a single glass of water can reshape the entire planet. Patience is a virtue I strive to master, and I’m nothing if not stubborn.

Yeah, I got that. lol

We are what we are.

Honestly I am getting to the point where I don’t really care about any engineer weapon. The only reason I want one at this stage is for a legendary, and there is only one legendary I really like and it just so happens that the engineer can’t use it. I’m told I should just wait and see if Arena Net adds more, but frankly they seem resistant to add weapons the engineer can actually use in any of their updates, and even when they do they are not themed in such a way as to look right.

Honestly at this point don’t we have enough magical swords? Can’t we get some tech themed weapons at some point? Give me something steampunk, please.

no steam punk. give me a kitten shotgun legendary that fires dragon’s breath on the blunderbuss.

Interestingly enough, after that post was made we got steampunk themed armor (with another on the way. Seriously have you previewed the new medium armor in the PvP locker? Like steampunk Iron Man meets Assassin’s Creed), and just recently steampunk weapons. I’m happy. Mostly. I just hate that the weapons come from the worse RNG scam yet (you have to get lucky TEN times instead of once for these skins).

i honestly think it looks terrible. and reiterate the point you quoted.

Pretty old post you’re quoting there. Also I believe they changed that “ten times” thing.
…
…
…
Now we need to win against RNG FIFTY times for each skin. Seriously, you need ten scraps for each ticket, and now you need five tickets for each skin. Just think of how many keys you would need to buy to get that many.

jaif.3518:

I’m missing the argument here. So what? Many people refer to “kits” as “the profession mechanic”.

Who cares? Does the label really bother you that much?

-Jeff

Actually what bothers me is the passive implication of the term. Every time some misinformed player calls kits or primary mechanic they give the development team a pass for all the shoddy design, poor balance, unless traits, more useless skills, and lack of build diversity that engineers suffer from. Maybe some of you haven’t noticed it yet, and maybe some simply have more tolerance than I do, but when you’ve been forced to use kits to the exclusion of other skill types for the better part of a year it really, really starts to get old.

And I don’t feel like I should be flamed for thinking that all those other skills, traits, and build possibilities should be just as viable for those of us who no longer want to use kits, or never wanted to. It would be one thing if kits actually were our primary mechanic but they simply, objectively, are not. And if they are meant to be, then the engineer suffers from the absolute worst implementation of a class mechanic in MMO history, and that is an even worse problem.

I’m bumping this in spite of the rules because I still need an answer.

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Arkham Creed.7358:

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Arkham Creed.7358:

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Think of it like this, the tool belt skills are our utility slots and the actual utility slots are what we use to put in additional functionality either by adding more weapons or what have you. The main difference is that we don’t get to pick our utilities since they are tied directly to what we pick for our additional functions. What you are saying about the tool belt being our primary class mechanic is technically correct, but you really cannot compare it to other class mechanics because ours is unique to engineer.

You basically just said that our profession mechanic is that we don’t get to choose our utility skills.

Why am I the only one who see this as a problem?

Because I don’t view the engineer tool belt mechanic to be essential to the success of the class. It seems to me that you don’t like using kits (which that is perfectly fine to not) but knowing that they are a huge part of the class it would seem to me that if you don’t like using kits you would be happier playing something else. Please don’t take that as a snarky comment because I don’t mean it to be, it just seems that you are quite distraught over how you perceive what the class was meant to be versus what it currently is and just trying to save you some frustration.

Actually I’ve been playing a kit based engineer for about eight months now. I started out loving it, but now I’m just freaking sick of it. I want to change my build, but nothing else is viable, so that is getting a bit frustrating.

Do you primarily sPvP, WvW or PVE? The reason I ask is we certainly do have “viable” alternatives to kits, like a sd build, or a elixir based build, of course they are not “viable” for all areas of the game though. As an example I wouldn’t run elixirs in dungeons, or sd in a zerg scenario in WvW but either one of those work perfectly fine in other aspects of the game. I don’t often run tourney pvp so I can’t really advise there, but I do know that quite a few classes get pigeonholed into using one type of build in the tourney pvp meta which is why I primarily avoid it.

Bah, I hate pvp and only ever do 1v1 with my fiancee to settle disputes or make…ahem “fun” bets. I like the idea of WvW, but my current computer can’t really handle the zerg, so I generally avoid it. Finally I spend most of my time in PvE open world stuff, living story and map completion mostly. I do dungeons only if I’m looking into a specific reward skin, or to complete each path (once) with each of my characters. I’ll probably try out the updated versions as they roll out, but I don’t really bother with them beyond doing them just so I could say I did them.

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Arkham Creed.7358:

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Think of it like this, the tool belt skills are our utility slots and the actual utility slots are what we use to put in additional functionality either by adding more weapons or what have you. The main difference is that we don’t get to pick our utilities since they are tied directly to what we pick for our additional functions. What you are saying about the tool belt being our primary class mechanic is technically correct, but you really cannot compare it to other class mechanics because ours is unique to engineer.

You basically just said that our profession mechanic is that we don’t get to choose our utility skills.

Why am I the only one who see this as a problem?

Because I don’t view the engineer tool belt mechanic to be essential to the success of the class. It seems to me that you don’t like using kits (which that is perfectly fine to not) but knowing that they are a huge part of the class it would seem to me that if you don’t like using kits you would be happier playing something else. Please don’t take that as a snarky comment because I don’t mean it to be, it just seems that you are quite distraught over how you perceive what the class was meant to be versus what it currently is and just trying to save you some frustration.

Actually I’ve been playing a kit based engineer for about eight months now. I started out loving it, but now I’m just freaking sick of it. I want to change my build, but nothing else is viable, so that is getting a bit frustrating.

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Think of it like this, the tool belt skills are our utility slots and the actual utility slots are what we use to put in additional functionality either by adding more weapons or what have you. The main difference is that we don’t get to pick our utilities since they are tied directly to what we pick for our additional functions. What you are saying about the tool belt being our primary class mechanic is technically correct, but you really cannot compare it to other class mechanics because ours is unique to engineer.

You basically just said that our profession mechanic is that we don’t get to choose our utility skills.

Why am I the only one who see this as a problem?

Oh yay, more cosmetic crap that is completely and utterly useless to engineers. Why don’t they just go ahead and remove that profession from the game already?

Penguin.5197:

I can agree with Arkham that this class is badly designed. Its sad that we don’t have weapon swap because the possibility of multiple kit and to toolbelt, our true profession mechanic, is designed to make up for those lost utility slots. Other classes get their mechanic for extra skills at no cost but not us, just think about how bad that was implemented.

And that pretty much sums up every one of my problems with engineer balance and mechanics.

Deacon.9725:

Arkham Creed.7358:

Don’t worry about it, I’ll provide a visual aid so everyone knows exactly what traits I am speaking of. Please direct your attention to the attached jpg.

What you’re looking at is a copy of every profession’s fifth trait line, with a particular passive bonus received for investing points in said line highlighted with a red box. You’ll first notice that every one of those bonuses is even represented by that profession’s unique thumbnail icon. Now if you check a wiki or skill/trait builder web site you will notice that in every instance that bonus apples a small statistic buff (not an additional or altered function) to that profession’s unique mechanic, and that said bonus even relates directly or indirectly to the functionality that profession has linked to pressing one or more of the function (F#) keys. This is true across the board and without exception, even to in the case of the engineer, as the engineer’s bonus directly applies to the Tool Belt skills, and not in any way to kits.

It seems like you’re just bent on making the small narrow case that because kits are not F# mechanics that they are not a core part of gameplay. Sadly, I don’t see how this makes sense unless you made the analogy that the 5th trait line in other classes (outside of Ele) had something to do with beefing up alternate weaponsets.

But the real thrust of the problem with this argument, Arkham, is that you seem to be saying “Engineers are not like everyone else. And that’s a Bad Thing!” I don’t see that as cause for concern at all. Treat kits like alternate weapon sets, which is a core function (I would still hazard to say core mechanic) of other professions’ playability. You don’t want a second weapon set? That’s ok. But it would be disingenuous to believe that the profession should be expected to have the greatest degree of flexibility, optionality and diversity in play as if you did use it.

Well here is my issue, firstly if you insist on ignoring the F# argument, there are still five other points raised n my opening post you are not addressing. Secondly, and the major issue here, is that for every profession in the game the primary mechanic is not optional, it is a part of your character that you cannot change or go without. For engineers this is the tool belt, and kits provide the function of utility skills only. Now if this was our profession mechanic it is very poorly implemented, as that would make us the only profession in the game that has to sacrifice a utility skill slot in order to make use of our profession mechanic.

Finally some clarification; if kits were our profession mechanic I wouldn’t have a problem with it. If nothing else it would give more legitimacy to the reasoning why we can’t use actual weapon swapping, and explain why our profession is so strongly balanced to rely on kits. However what I take issue with is the fact that our profession is so strongly balanced around an optional utility skill type, and that means Arena Net’s poor balance forces us to sacrifice at least one utility slot on kits. Furthermore I take issue with players dismissing this problem with the false explanation that kits are our primary profession mechanic.

I concede that kits are a mechanic of our profession, and even a strong and important one. No different from warrior banners, guardian wards, mesmer mantras, elementalist glyphs, or thief venoms. But again I stress that these professions are not balanced with the assumption that they will be using these skill types, and have a much higher number of viable builds without those skill types than engineers have without kits.

As I said in my post to you in that other thread, it is painfully obvious that kits were supposed to be our primary mechanic. And they probably were at some point in development. But that doesn’t change the fact that they are not currently our primary mechanic, and our being balanced to use them almost to the exclusion of everything else is a very real problem with this profession, and a problem you are doing nothing to resolve and everything to propagate by passively insisting that our reliance on kits is somehow acceptable. If we don’t complain Arena Net will never fix this.

Imagi.4561:

Arkham Creed.7358:

Chaba.5410:

No, they are not passive statistical buffs. If you narrow the terminology down enough, you can exclude anything to prove a point. Yet, as a friend says, if you only watch the finger, you won’t see it pointing at the moon and you shall miss out on all the moon’s wonder and glory.

So you’re suggestion we ignore an established pattern set forth by the developers, refuse to use it as a baseline for judgment, and use the wrong terminology all so that we can pretend something is what it objectively isn’t?

Perhaps I had an extra dose of stupid in my breakfast this morning, but you lost me, Arkham. I thought this was a general point about semantics, using comparisons with other classes as foundation.

Don’t worry about it, I’ll provide a visual aid so everyone knows exactly what traits I am speaking of. Please direct your attention to the attached jpg.

What you’re looking at is a copy of every profession’s fifth trait line, with a particular passive bonus received for investing points in said line highlighted with a red box. You’ll first notice that every one of those bonuses is even represented by that profession’s unique thumbnail icon. Now if you check a wiki or skill/trait builder web site you will notice that in every instance that bonus apples a small statistic buff (not an additional or altered function) to that profession’s unique mechanic, and that said bonus even relates directly or indirectly to the functionality that profession has linked to pressing one or more of the function (F#) keys. This is true across the board and without exception, even to in the case of the engineer, as the engineer’s bonus directly applies to the Tool Belt skills, and not in any way to kits.

Chaba.5410:

No, they are not passive statistical buffs. If you narrow the terminology down enough, you can exclude anything to prove a point. Yet, as a friend says, if you only watch the finger, you won’t see it pointing at the moon and you shall miss out on all the moon’s wonder and glory.

So you’re suggestion we ignore an established pattern set forth by the developers, refuse to use it as a baseline for judgment, and use the wrong terminology all so that we can pretend something is what it objectively isn’t?

Chaba.5410:

“Does the engineer’s fifth trait line, Tools, provide a passive statistical buff to kits? No.”

Not to be a troll, but the tool trait line has Kit Refinement in it (and Speedy Kits, Speedy Gadgets, etc.)

That is not a passive statistical buff; that is a triggered additional function on a pre-set cooldown. Further more it is an “opt-in” trait that must be manually selected by the player at the expense of other traits within the Tools line, were as the passive buffs I was speaking of and those I mentioned in the opening post from other professions are “free bonuses” simply for spending points in those trait lines.

Deacon.9725:

Considering that this was taken from a thread that I think replied to a post of mine directly, I would like to comment. The semantics of “primary profession mechanic” being the F-buttons seems to be an incredibly narrow view of how to view any given profession. Perhaps my verbage is what struck a chord, as “mechanic” seems to be taken literally. Rather, I would re-suggest that kits are still a core functionality of Engineers. This seems to be something that is not directly translatable to all other professions, however I would posit that it is akin to the idea that clones/phantasms are a core functionality of Mesmers (even though it seems that using Arkham’s literal semantics-baed logic, that Shattering is the core mechanic and that clones/phantasms are merely utilities?).

The point here is that Engineers are seen both inside and outside the playing community as a thoroughly unique profession. In that vein, we cannot do apples-to-apples comparisons on weapon-to-utility-to-F# skills. It is incorrect to relegate kits as something that acts as “just another utility skill” ala other professions. Quite simply, the way that kits work belies that comparison: kits function as the response to other professions’ weapon-swaps. Therefore, not discussing kits interaction with each other and the main weapon-set as a core function of how the profession plays would be similar to Elementalists talking about just sitting in one attunement, or how other professions deal with weapon swaps.

I believe the difference in literal semantics on what constitutes profession-mechanic and core functionality may go a long way to bridging this divide Arkham seems to imply in the OP.

There are two glaring flaws in your reasoning.

First; illusions and illusion shattering are both the primary mechanic (singular, not plural) of the mesmer, as you cannont shatter an illusion without first summoning one. Furthermore the mesmer has a visible display of how many illusions they have summoned, and how many total they may have in what is best described as the “profession section” of the HUD. Finally every mesmer weapon option, without exception, has access to at least one illusion summoning skill, meaning it is objectively impossible to play a mesmer without access to illusions.

Secondly; engineer kits are not a skill type singularly unique to the engineer, as their primary function is nearly identical to that of elementalist conjured weapons. That is to say that they are a utility skill option that when used replaces the equipped weapon and all associated skills with a pre-set skill build themed to the skill used, and that does not scale based on equipped weapon damage. The skill types are exactly the same, with the exception that engineer kits are “overpowered” or rather “unbalanced” by having no cooldowns and near instant casting times. That could be another line of discussion, but in summation I feel furthers the theory that kits were originally supposed to be the f-bar profession mechanic due to their similar “ease of use” to elementalist attunements.

Imagi.4561:

I would consider kits a primary profession mechanic for Engineer, since they are unique to the class and are a core component of many engineer builds.

Indeed, ultimately no different than a warrior’s banners, or a ranger’s traps….of course warrior’s and ranger’s aren’t indirectly punished for not using banners or traps by shoddy and kitten balance. But that is another thread that has been made and re-made a million times.

I enjoy a good sarcastic complaint as much as the next guy, but I hope you’re just venting because Arena Net doesn’t even know the suggestions sub-forum exists, so they never read anything out of it.

Anakita Snakecharm.4360:

marnick.4305:

I haven’t had this bug since launch period. AFAIK it doesn’t exist anymore. You’re most likely doing something wrong.

Actually, this never happened to me until yesterday, and I got stuck in combat even after:

1.) Killing what was attacking me.

2.) Trying to key out of it.

3.) Killing random things.

4.) Running halfway across the zone. (Slowly.)

5.) Completing an event on the other side of the zone.

The only thing that fixed it was waypointing.

So yeah, definitely a bug, and not a squashed one. Like I said, this was less than 24 hours ago.

Happened to me more than a few times during Scarlet’s invasions, so I can attest to that. Tell me, was the zone you were in particularly full? I have a theory that it is caused by server lag due to a large number of players, as it never happens to me in instances or less populated areas.

(Just clearing up a misconception I’ve seen on these forums way, way too much lately.)

If they were they would be like the other profession mechanics and either A; occupy the F-bar, or B; work as some form of passive effect of our weapon skills (see: mesmer illusions), or finally C; act as an overall passive effect or gauge (see: thief initiative and guardian passive virtues). The simple fact is that the way the game is designed you can’t go into combat without your “primary mechanic,” yet engineers are fully able to enter combat without a single kit on your skill bar. Likewise all other profession mechanics are available in some fashion from level one, providing an opportunity to learn how said mechanic works. Oh, and let’s not forget that ever profession’s final trait line has a passive statistical buff specifically relating to said mechanic such as the guardian’s Virtues trait line buffing Virtue recharge rate, the ranger’s Beastmastery buffing pet attributes, the mesmer’s Illusions line reducing the recharge of Shatter skills, and the warrior’s Discipline reducing the recharge of Burst skills.

So let’s review…

Do engineer kits occupy the F-bar? No.

Are engineer kits an aspect of weapon skills? No.

Are engineer kits some form of passive effect? No.

Are engineer kits available right from level one? No.

Are engineer kits an “always-on” or otherwise always-available aspect of the profession regardless of build? No.

Does the engineer’s fifth trait line, Tools, provide a passive statistical buff to kits? No.

In summation; engineer kits are not our primary profession mechanic, the Tool Belt is. This is an objective fact regardless of how much people may want to say otherwise. The only reason we are so dependent on them is poor balance and profession design, making an optional utility skill type so vastly superior to our actual profession mechanic (something undeniably underwhelming) as well as all other utility skill types and our baseline weapon skills that feel compelled to use them in much the same way as other professions are designed to use their profession mechanic.