Is it time to address kit necessity in builds?

Hey all. I've been picking up my engineer again for some sword and shield action!

That said, the viability of builds is very stagnant, most of them requiring two Engineer Kits. This is because kits are the assumed profession mechanic that replaced more weapon options and weapon swapping. I have been thinking about ways to address this.

Here is my thought. Kits move to the F positions. Toolbelt skills become there own utility category.

Pro- you actually get some choices for utilities now, increasing build diversity.

Con- you have access to 4 kits. This would require a major rebalance since at most we get 3 now. Would also require condensing one kit.

What are your thoughts? Any other ideas you have come up with when thinking about the kit conundrum?

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/These-legendaries-need-some-love/first#post6613348

" I’d much rather Fskills worked similar elementailists. Essentially I want them to swap the positions which might enable kits to have the ‘bundle’ status removed. For example, you select Grenade Barrage as utility slot 8, then gain the grenade kit on F3."

My thoughts exactly.

I think this would be pretty OP since we'd become basically an ele without any CD on attunemantdancing.

@Opopanax.1803 said:Con- you have access to 4 kits. This would require a major rebalance since at most we get 3 now. Would also require condensing one kit.We can equip five kits ATM . There are seven in total so you would need to condens allmost to half if you want to rework kits completely.

@Haleydawn.3764 said:

" I’d much rather Fskills worked similar elementailists. Essentially I want them to swap the positions which might enable kits to have the ‘bundle’ status removed. For example, you select Grenade Barrage as utility slot 8, then gain the grenade kit on F3."

My thoughts exactly.

So create a kit for every utillity? Otherwise this wouldnt change anything or am i missing something?Maybe if you create groups and each utillity of the group provides the same kit.

@schloumou.3982 said:I think this would be pretty OP since we'd become basically an ele without any CD on attunemantdancing.

That's what we do already. The only difference would be acknowledging that kits are our core mechanic right now.

Kits aren't mandatory enough to drastically overhaul this..

You can make many historically favorite, well balanced builds from one kit. It's nice to bring a kit for swap sigil mechanics, and it's really not that oppressive. Another good example of how every class isn't homogenized and it's not a bad thing

Edit: Funny time to discuss the necessity of kits in builds when holosmith has a very strong (strongest?) kitless option

The power holosmith build probably won't see much kit use.

Hybrid holo will be a lot better than pure power I'm afraid. With that you will need at least bomb and flame but nade will probably be the best for last slot anyway

@WeedyZeGreedy.8635 said:Hybrid holo will be a lot better than pure power I'm afraid. With that you will need at least bomb and flame but nade will probably be the best for last slot anyway

Hybrid anything is garbage in PvE.

You need power/precision/ferocity stat combo for power builds to scale well at all, and for condi you need condi duration.

Half measures on either of those lead to poor results. How well is rabid doing? Yeah, I thought so.

@cat.8975 said:The power holosmith build probably won't see much kit use.

I found the elixir kit to be immensely useful during the PvP weekend. It was perfect for when PF was cooling down.

Will be interesting to see if ho!osmith can break away from kits effectively or not. I have my doubts.

@Opopanax.1803 said:Will be interesting to see if ho!osmith can break away from kits effectively or not. I have my doubts.

The only build I've found effective without using kits as Holo in WvW was an SD build. All of my builds with Holo I will still be taking at least 1 kit.

I think it's fine to have kits as strong and I particularly like the fact that kits are similar to elemental attunements, but without the cooldown.

However, the biggest flaw with kits is that there are kits with stronger auto-attacks than weapon skills. This is particularly problematic with the grenade kit, which becomes physically painful to use for too long.

@Dahkeus.8243 said:I think it's fine to have kits as strong and I particularly like the fact that kits are similar to elemental attunements, but without the cooldown.

However, the biggest flaw with kits is that there are kits with stronger auto-attacks than weapon skills. This is particularly problematic with the grenade kit, which becomes physically painful to use for too long.

I think that is the issue. Kits are what made Engi not get more weapons... they are the assumed profession mechanic that takes the place of more weapon options.

This post is about PvP only.

For me kits are the most fun mechanic of any class in GW2. The Scrapper introduced a weapon that fills multiple roles making kits less of a necessity. The Holosmith will continue that trend by giving the Engineer damage potential without a kit. Because of that I do not agree with the claim for less kit oriented play.

The most common kits in PvP are defensive or utility kits (Elixir Gun, Mortar Kit and Tool Kit). The recent buff to the Grenade Kit (most notably the damage increase to Grenade Barrage and Shrapnel Grenade) made a Paladin amulet power Engineer playable. The build has damage potential (Grenade Barrage can hit very hard) and thanks to the nature of the amulet it is quite resilient . But it is still nowhere close in damage or sustain to any of the common PvP builds.

In PvP the condition Engineer is on the other hand weak. The only usable condition damage kit (the Flamethrower) is still in an awkward position. Flame Blast is clunky at best. Napalm's only use is cleave (it does that remarkably well though). On top of that the Flamethrower burst relies almost entirely on one damaging condition. Since there are only a few cover conditions the burst is however easily negated by the most common PvP builds. At the same time the condition Engineer has very low sustain. The low health pool on some condition amulets leaves you very vulnerable to all other condition builds. Despite the toughness power builds pose and equal threat. A vitality amulet (Deadshot or the hybrid Carrion) leaves the condition Engineer extremely vulnerable to power burst damage. Even classes that are weak to condition damage (like the power Herald for example) can tear a condition Engineer apart in moments without even allowing them to retaliate.

The over abundance of soft and hard CC and the lack of stability on a core kit Engineer are another liability.

I finally readily admit that I am not the most glorious player ever. But I'm not the worst either. With the core builds I play I have come out on top in situations that I should not have survived. But I have also lost to worse players because core kit Engineers are still not on par.

I am also aware that the core Engineer builds I play in PvP are weaker than the 'meta'.But the gap between the top picks and a core kit Engineer is still considerable. In some situations playing a core kit Engineer feels almost helpless.

This is why I find the debate over supposedly overbearing kits highly irritating. It might be true in PvE but it is certainly not in PvP. I have enjoyed the kit game play since the first GW2 beta. I still enjoy it today despite all the shortcomings and unnecessary changes (the June 23rd 2015 patch still being the worst). That is why I would be really happy if threads like this could stop making general assumptions (kits OP, everyone hates kits, etc.) and actually say precisely in what area of the game the mechanic is seen as a problem and that the view expressed is personal and not necessarily in line with everyone else's feelings.

/end rant

@Chaith.8256 said:Funny time to discuss the necessity of kits in builds when holosmith has a very strong (strongest?) kitless option

It is a little bit of an odd comparison considering the aweful cooldown added when switching between holosmith mode and any kit.

I have made the exact same suggestion closely after hot launched and scrapper was... scrapper. People shut me down because it was "too much work"I am really glad there are some similar minded people here. Engineers real core mechanic is kits not toolbelt.As to the details of my proposal with this new mechanic: My thought was to meld toolbelts into their respective skills. And not have a ele with no attunment cd; but make something different. Like revenant: Two kits, but no cd of course. Plus this would make number crunching more manageable since most of the time we use two maybe three kits at most.

I'm a core Engi with 3 kits (I won't play Holo). I love my kits the way they are so either buff them or leave them alone.

@Zenith.7301 said:

@WeedyZeGreedy.8635 said:Hybrid holo will be a lot better than pure power I'm afraid. With that you will need at least bomb and flame but nade will probably be the best for last slot anyway

If you play your cards right then upcoming Hybrid builds will be more than just half measures, but non-Ele/Guard ones will be interesting to put together. The biggest draws for a hybrid build would be that it results in the highest possible damage for individual skills and it makes better use of might. The problem with hybrid builds, like this one, is that their effectiveness is related to the use of a single condition. While a hybrid build will likely be far more effective for single condition professions like Guardian and Elementalist, it has relevance for professions like Holosmith that can reliably create builds focused on a single condition.

Based on my math in a void, the Holosmith build I posted above deals ~64% physical, ~350% burning and ~204% bleeding damage of that dealt by a standard power engineer using the same skills (with might, fury, EA, Spotter and banners) and ~140% physical, ~93% burning and ~62% bleeding damage of that dealt by a standard Viper's Engineer using the same skills (with might, fury, EA, Spotter, AP and banners). For any skill that inflicts physical damage and burning, unless the power coefficient or burning duration is absolutely terrible, the Hybrid build outmatches both standard power and standard condi builds.

I'm not even gonna bother mathcrafting for Ele and Guard. Viper's builds are dead for them thanks to Fire Meat Chilli and Grieving stats. There's certainly value in investigating other professions using the same premise.

I prefer the idea of allowing us to equip one kit on a slot where the weapon swap is for most classes, that way we always have a kit, since it is supposed to be part of our class mechanic, but players can still choose to slot more instead of being required to.

@Conncept.7638 said:I prefer the idea of allowing us to equip one kit on a slot where the weapon swap is for most classes, that way we always have a kit, since it is supposed to be part of our class mechanic, but players can still choose to slot more instead of being required to.

Not a bad idea, though they would have to buff some things to compensate for double and triple kit build losses. But this could work well!

@Opopanax.1803 said:

@Conncept.7638 said:I prefer the idea of allowing us to equip one kit on a slot where the weapon swap is for most classes, that way we always have a kit, since it is supposed to be part of our class mechanic, but players can still choose to slot more instead of being required to.

What do you mean by kit losses?

My suggestion is that you would have a skill slot where the weapon swap is, which would be unique in that you could only select a kit on it. But you could still put kits into your other skill slots exactly like you do now- one in the healing slot, three in the utility slots, one in the elite slot, and of course one in the new "kit" slot. So, far from losing kits, this would open up the class to having a six kit build if one so chooses. Granted any six kit build would most likely be absolutely terrible, but it'd be an option.

Ah, well in that case you still run into multiple kits being necessary. I thought you meant select a kit to function as a weapon instead of utility slots.

I could actually see taking vanilla weapons and pitting them against flame thrower, grenade, bomb, and tool kit for the two weapon slots. Make elixir gun the healing slot kit, and rework mortar kit as the elite.

The entire kit pool should have been encased in an F1 and F2 skill slot packet. Limited number of slots for a bunch of options. Pick two based on what kind of build you want to bring along, and bombs should be a full power-spec. The whole kits as utilities thing along with the toolbelt was not a well thought-out design.