Do you like playing with Engineering Kits?

[melodyspectrum.2980]

Kits are what make engi an engi. If people hate kits there's 8 other classes to play.

[Holly.8190]

I love playing with Kits they make Engi so versatile, The thing that got me into having Engineer as my main was Condi Holosmith which is 3 kits and i love every second on it.

[CrowEschatologist.6214]

Eh. I want to like playing with kits, but piano builds are bad for my wrists - and most of the kits could be replaced with the 1 or 2 good skills you actually want to cast from them.

 

[flaccidbagel.2457]

I started leveling an engineer and originally the idea of the kits felt cool, and was part of why I began leveling the class. The issue I have is that, well, they're extremely bland.

 

Most of the kits feel super one-note, with bland animations and effects. As mentioned by several folks, half of the kits literally use the same animation for every single thing they do. Heck, the bomb kit has no animation if you're running while using it. Add that on top of the poor feedback and effects on the core engineer weapons (Rifle much less so with the recent changes), and it feels necessary to use at least one kit, but also just not satisfying in the slightest.

 

From a mechanical standpoint I can understand how folks may enjoy pianoing through kits to get the best rotations, but I personally don't care about that as I'm admittedly a very casual player. I wouldn't mind learning if the skills were at least visually satisfying to use and half of them weren't just different variations of circular explosion. I wanted to have one of each profession, so I'm sitting here considering just dumping the level 80 boost I have from an expansion on it just to see if I have more fun using any of the elite specs (and to free up that shared inventory slot), as unfortunately its so far the one class I'm just not enjoying much.

[Kuma.1503]

Kits are litearlly why I play Engi. 

[Yellow Rainbow.6142]

 I play on action camera. Now, remove the auto aim/aim lock.Perfect for my rifle guy 🙂. Headshot more damage vs body or limb shot would be awesome instead of this non sense of pushing 30 buttons for optimal dps.

[drchaos.5204]

a good start would be if the med kit wouldnt disable a bunch of passive effects cause you cant trigger them with the medkit

[Valisha.8650]

I do not mind running a single kit for the class flavor's sake, but the builds with 3 or more kits are just cringe wannabe condi weaver emulators.

[Valisha.8650]

On 7/7/2022 at 10:05 PM, melodyspectrum.2980 said:

Kits are what make engi an engi. If people hate kits there's 8 other classes to play.

Engi is what make engi an engi. Following your reasoning, scourge is not necro because it doesn't have a real shroud mechanic. Virtuoso is not a mesmer, since it lacks clones. Etc.

[Bomboed.5697]

Playing with zero kits is boring.
Playing with 1 kit is optimal and fun.
Playing with 2 kits sometimes fun, but already kinda frustrating.
Playing with 3+ kits is a cringefiesta of pain.

I would love to see a weapon swap to be replaced with a slot for 1 kit.

[ThunderHierres Strells.2730]

I like using around two kits. 

However I'm not very fond of toolbelt skills. 

[lorddarkflare.9186]

Kits would be great if they came with a diminishing return mechanic. I have been saying this since day one. Only the most extreme cases should necessitate 3 kits. And 4 kits should be unheard of.

Kits should have cooldowns that increase for each kit you have. So 0s -> 5s -> 10s. And then re-balance the kits around those cooldowns.

With the way kits work now, there is always an incentive to stack as many of them as possible to do more damage.

I don't mind them, but I feel they have an absurd negative impact on the balancing of the class as a whole.

As an aside: Mortar, Grenade Kit and Bomb kit skills all feel to same-y within the kit.

Edited September 6, 2022 by lorddarkflare.9186

[Kuma.1503]

0 Kits - Feels boring to play. You have no weapon swap. I'd rather play a different class. 

1 kit - Feels like playing any other class, but with one less utility slot and no CD on weapon swap. Feels good on power builds, but generally doesn't hold my interest for long. 

2 kits - Sweet spot for power builds. Nades is the go to for DPS, and Mortar kit, Med kit, or Elixir gun can be slotted in for utility purposes.

In PvP, Elixir Gun + Tool Kit makes a good combo for core power builds.

Nades + Egun feels good on scrapper and Holo. Nades for damage and consistent ranged pressure, and egun for the stunbreak, unblockable damage, ranged cripple, and a tiny bit more healing, and cleansing. Some decent group utility as well with fumigate. Egun just does a lot with one utility slot. 

3 kits - Sweet spot for Condi and supports builds.

HAM and Heal Scrapper uses Med Kit, Elixir Gun, and Mortar for the utility. I enjoy blasting my fields, pulling out the right tool I need for the right situation, being able to swap from  Med kit for raw healing, Elixir gun for cleanses and some extra AoE healing, and mortar for ranged damage and utility

For Condi builds, I like having bomb kit + Flamethrower. The combination of fire fields and blast finishers lets you stack might while pumping out a tons of burning. Mortar Kit is simply the best elite skill in Engi's arsenal, so it slots in as the final kit. 

This gives you the combination of smoke bomb and flash shell to permablind mobs. And you can blast/leap your light or water field for healing and cleanses in a pinch. 

4 kits - This is where extra kits start feeling redundant. Utility slots get clogged up by kits which feels bad when this is the encouraged way to play. 

On condi builds, Bomb Kit, Flamethrower, and Mortar feel good together. You get a nice combination of fields, blasts, utility, and a wide spread of conditions to apply to enemies.

Then you shove in Grenade kit. Grenade kit only adds extra buttons that deal damage, when you already had an abundance of those. The blind, chill, and ranged damage are already covered by mortar kit. Nade kit also encourages you to auto attack using a kit rather than your actual weapon, which just feels bad.

Mech is my preferred condi build because I can run Mace/Pistol and auto attack with my mace instead of nades. Allowing me to run shift signet instead. It's nice to actually see your weapon for longer than .5 seconds in a fight. (Especially since legendary effects don't work on kits for some reason)

5 kits - W H Y?

 

Edited September 7, 2022 by Kuma.1503

[MrForz.1953]

5 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

5 kits - W H Y?

 

My goals are beyond your understanding.

[Diktator.8927]

I had to use kits while leveling, as the default weapons were trash. But I dislike them very much in their current state.

They feel impact-less and boring. Yes, it's optimal to use them in a lot of damage builds, but I just can't bring myself to ever use them. Besides, they don't really fit my interpretation of a class identity/theme, on both Scrapper and Holosmith, which I enjoy playing the most. Scrapper is more about gyros, supportive abilities, and it's kinda focused on electricity/lightning (Hammer). 
Holosmith is more about the photon forge and doing some flashy heat/fire and, well... Holo abilities. I can't find any place for boring looking kits in there, they simply look and feel outdated to use.

Edited September 7, 2022 by Diktator.8927

[Calen.8945]

I hate the kits because, simply put, they are not weapons. They lack the customization you can have when picking two weapons, and I hate the feeling of my weapons becoming little more then stat sticks.

 

In my opinion, Kits should be removed and the engineer class should get a few new core weapons.

[Lysico.4906]

Nope. I play kitless mech and scrapper 

[Artificer.3468]

I really enjoy kits, they were a part of what's kept me on engi for so long. Only issue is sometimes my latency makes switching into/out of them kinda rough but I dont find them clunky outside of that

[Ghos.1326]

I seen a few suggestions about adding a weapon swap to Engineer.

The only time I would support that, is if that weapon swap becomes the kit selection area. So instead of using a utility slot for a kit, your weapon swap is where you select a kit. Then, if you so choose, you can add another kit into your utility slots.

Other than that, nah I don't think Engi should get a weapon swap. Core Engi only has 2 weapons anyways, and both of those weapons (not including the offhand) are on opposite sides of the spectrum in terms of power vs condition damage.

Oh yeah, while I'm here: MAKE INVENTIONS GREAT AGAIN (and turrets)

Edited September 8, 2022 by Ghos.1326

[Anela.3867]

Kits are why I never even considered playing this class until the Mechanist was released. I would rather have a weapons swap.

[draxynnic.3719]

Have to admit to agreeing with @flaccidbagel.2457 regarding some kits being one-note. Flamethrower, elixir gun, and toolkit are fun, and medkit looks fun for a support engi. Grenade, bomb kit, and mortar just feel like the skills are all operating the same way, and even comparing them they have similar functions to each other but at different ranges. Intellectually I know that they're different, but it still mostly boils down to 'use this skill because it's basically like the autoattack but it does more damage'. It also doesn't help that grenades and mortars require different control settings to what I generally want with other professions in order to work.

[SleepyBat.9034]

Personally I love kits on engineer, my favorite combination is EG and EMK with an assortment of elixir skills for those delicious boons.

[EvilZombie.6801]

I like kits they should buff kits and rework bomb kit 

[Caiden.9074]

If they had better sound and visual design, yes. As they exist now, no.

The sound design on most of them is non-impactful, muted, and sameyy.

The visuals overriding any fashion choices is unappealing, and many of the VFX are kind of lame.

They also shoe-horn a lot of build choices. Want condi? You HAVE to use the grenade kit.

I avoid them for those reasons.

I want to use my rifle. I like the gunplay class fantasy. If there was some sort of heavy gun kit, I'd be over the moon.

 

Side note, I hate that the Alchemy trait line is god tier. It's so good it makes some other defensive choices just garbage in comparison. I wish they'd buff the Tools and Inventions trait lines a little more.

Edited November 13, 2022 by Caiden.9074

[SleepyBat.9034]

2 hours ago, Caiden.9074 said:

Side note, I hate that the Alchemy trait line is god tier. It's so good it makes some other defensive choices just garbage in comparison. I wish they'd buff the Tools and Inventions trait lines a little more.

While I don't hate that Alchemy is very strong it is a bit bothersome at times.