Can anyone list their usefulness of gadgets and kits?

[XenMaster.7165]

For PVE open world ofc. So i can combine weird utilities on every situation.

[Phazon.3975]

Gadgets need work to be viable for open world. They're pretty underutilized and for good reason. For farming builds, Rocket Boots can come in handy tho for faster, non-static, farms.

 

Kits are much more useful for open world than Gadgets altho I would say Grenade , Bomb , Flamethrower, or Mortar kit mainly. Grenades do good damage, are a nice ranged option if you are using a Mace or Hammer, and come with the powerful Grenade Barrage but they can be a bit annoying for casual open world play even with the Grenadier trait as they tend to miss a lot when enemies aggro to you. They're solid for farming tho. Flamethrower and Mortar are also the ultimate farming pair for events imo. Flamethrower does poor damage however but has great boon synergy with Mechanist. Mortar is nice for the Elite slot as the Flash Shell and Elixir Shell can come in handy in high pressure situations. Bomb Kit is similar but is pbAoE.

 

If you want to try out kits, I would give Bomb Kit and Mortar Kit a shot. You can try Grenade Kit too and toggle "Snap Ground Target to Current Target" for ease of use and really helps while kiting.

Edited June 29, 2022 by Phazon.3975

[Phazon.3975]

One more thing to add is that normally offensive Kits are used to add to your skill rotation, usually better with the lower cooldown skills taking priority. Like open with Smoke Bomb then go Fire Bomb->Concussion Bomb->Poison Darts->Static Shot->Blowtorch->swap to Mortar for Poison Gas Shell and Flash Shell if you still need more blind then swap to Bomb Kit for Fire Bomb, yadda yadda. Only use autos while everything else is on cooldown. But since this is mainly a question for open world, you can just go by my previous post.

Edited June 29, 2022 by Phazon.3975

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

Finally someone asked about Gadgets and did not want to rant. These are my experiences. Here we go:

Rocket Kick (Rocket Boots toolbelt)
If you run a power-build and want some easy and reliable damage multiplier, you can run Superior Runes of the Flame Legion with Tools Gadgeteer + an ascended Bringer amulet. You only need ~ 150 Expertise for this trick. Once everything is set, you can use Rocket Rick at the beginning of the fight and whenever it is off cooldown. Duration and cooldown are equal, which means you can maintain burning 100 % uptime, which triggers the rune damage multiplier. It is a lot easier to handle than the Scholar's runes and still works below 90 % health.

Rocket Boots
Works great with Tools Gadgeteer on a Scrapper using Kinetic Accelerators. Extra Quickness source. I use this combination on my gathering build.

Mine Field (Throw Mine toolbelt)
If you run Explosives, this gets quite powerful in Open World. Each of the mines count as one explosive. Each explosive causes an explosion effect that hits up to 5 targets.

Throw Mine
A good & reliable Blast Finisher and strong CC. The boon-rip can come in handy with a NPCs, especially in EoD and PoF. 

Slick Shoes
This one is special. Most Engineers will tell you that it is complete trash and not even worth a try. The problem is, neither the tooltip nor the wiki actually explain what it does correctly. It is one of a few extremely rare skills in the game that are capable of interrupting evades. If an enemy uses an evasion-skill, they become literally invulnerable until the skill ends. Some enemies like the the branded griffons have very long evasion-duration, which often leads to players wasting their most powerful skills. But if you have an Engineer close by who knows about Slick Shoes, they can just interrupt the evasion and finish the annoying enemy quickly. 

Detection Pulse (Utility Goggles toolbelt)
Utility Goggles have been useful in the past. The toolbelt can be useful as it reveals multiple stealth enemies in a large area. The huge problem in PvE is that it does not work with most invisibility effects of NPCs. Especially not the Itzel Shadowleapers in HoT. It also does not work with a couple of bosses which go into stealth. 

A useful side-effect/bug of that skill is that it triggers a few impact counters. If your enemy has e. g. Aegis and you use Detection Pulse, it will trigger the Aegis and you do not have to waste a real skill for that. B

Personal Battering Ram
Ammo skill for knockbacks. This is very useful during the Tarir meta-event in Auric Basin, if you are doing south. You need knockbacks/launches to move the NPC bomb towards the octovine. It is also good for dealing quick CC damage to a breakbar.

Launch Personal Battering Ram (Personal Battering Ram toolbelt)
Long(er) range CC. If you run Superior Sigil of Celerity for quickness, this one helps if you are currently in range to your enemy. For example when you use the Mortar Kit. 

A.E.D.
This is by far the most powerful block we have, because you can negate lethal-strikes with this - in theory. The problem is you need to time it perfectly and it has an annoying cast-time. If you run a Scrapper with a good barrier uptime, this can be an option for an emergency heal.

They however did not like how powerful this skill is and decided to nerf it in PvE drastically. A lot of mechanics which result in a lethal 1-shot kill go right through the A.E.D. and kill you even if it is active. This applies for newer encounters and fractal boss fights. If you run older content, it might still work on lethal attacks. 

-

Mortar Kit
You can run it as a budget bomb-kit by aiming behind you and spamming the shells while running. It is tedious and can take ages to kill certain enemies and bosses. But due to AI limitations, it is the lamest troll-strategies you can run when fighting hordes of melee enemies or super-strong bosses. The worst thing I ever fought with this was the Champion Risen Drake Broodmother, which is capable of annihilating groups of players with ease. Some of us used this in sPvP and caused really salty rants. It works great, but it is not very heroic to use.

Flame Thrower
Works great with Firearms Juggernaut, which works with Mass Momentum on Scrapper. It is good for farming and tagging multiple enemies. 

There is more about kits, but I am out of time right now. Sorry.

[XenMaster.7165]

On 6/30/2022 at 12:07 AM, HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:

Finally someone asked about Gadgets and did not want to rant. These are my experiences. Here we go:

Rocket Kick (Rocket Boots toolbelt)
If you run a power-build and want some easy and reliable damage multiplier, you can run Superior Runes of the Flame Legion with Tools Gadgeteer + an ascended Bringer amulet. You only need ~ 150 Expertise for this trick. Once everything is set, you can use Rocket Rick at the beginning of the fight and whenever it is off cooldown. Duration and cooldown are equal, which means you can maintain burning 100 % uptime, which triggers the rune damage multiplier. It is a lot easier to handle than the Scholar's runes and still works below 90 % health.

Rocket Boots
Works great with Tools Gadgeteer on a Scrapper using Kinetic Accelerators. Extra Quickness source. I use this combination on my gathering build.

Mine Field (Throw Mine toolbelt)
If you run Explosives, this gets quite powerful in Open World. Each of the mines count as one explosive. Each explosive causes an explosion effect that hits up to 5 targets.

Throw Mine
A good & reliable Blast Finisher and strong CC. The boon-rip can come in handy with a NPCs, especially in EoD and PoF. 

Slick Shoes
This one is special. Most Engineers will tell you that it is complete trash and not even worth a try. The problem is, neither the tooltip nor the wiki actually explain what it does correctly. It is one of a few extremely rare skills in the game that are capable of interrupting evades. If an enemy uses an evasion-skill, they become literally invulnerable until the skill ends. Some enemies like the the branded griffons have very long evasion-duration, which often leads to players wasting their most powerful skills. But if you have an Engineer close by who knows about Slick Shoes, they can just interrupt the evasion and finish the annoying enemy quickly. 

Detection Pulse (Utility Goggles toolbelt)
Utility Goggles have been useful in the past. The toolbelt can be useful as it reveals multiple stealth enemies in a large area. The huge problem in PvE is that it does not work with most invisibility effects of NPCs. Especially not the Itzel Shadowleapers in HoT. It also does not work with a couple of bosses which go into stealth. 

A useful side-effect/bug of that skill is that it triggers a few impact counters. If your enemy has e. g. Aegis and you use Detection Pulse, it will trigger the Aegis and you do not have to waste a real skill for that. B

Personal Battering Ram
Ammo skill for knockbacks. This is very useful during the Tarir meta-event in Auric Basin, if you are doing south. You need knockbacks/launches to move the NPC bomb towards the octovine. It is also good for dealing quick CC damage to a breakbar.

Launch Personal Battering Ram (Personal Battering Ram toolbelt)
Long(er) range CC. If you run Superior Sigil of Celerity for quickness, this one helps if you are currently in range to your enemy. For example when you use the Mortar Kit. 

A.E.D.
This is by far the most powerful block we have, because you can negate lethal-strikes with this - in theory. The problem is you need to time it perfectly and it has an annoying cast-time. If you run a Scrapper with a good barrier uptime, this can be an option for an emergency heal.

They however did not like how powerful this skill is and decided to nerf it in PvE drastically. A lot of mechanics which result in a lethal 1-shot kill go right through the A.E.D. and kill you even if it is active. This applies for newer encounters and fractal boss fights. If you run older content, it might still work on lethal attacks. 

-

Mortar Kit
You can run it as a budget bomb-kit by aiming behind you and spamming the shells while running. It is tedious and can take ages to kill certain enemies and bosses. But due to AI limitations, it is the lamest troll-strategies you can run when fighting hordes of melee enemies or super-strong bosses. The worst thing I ever fought with this was the Champion Risen Drake Broodmother, which is capable of annihilating groups of players with ease. Some of us used this in sPvP and caused really salty rants. It works great, but it is not very heroic to use.

Flame Thrower
Works great with Firearms Juggernaut, which works with Mass Momentum on Scrapper. It is good for farming and tagging multiple enemies. 

There is more about kits, but I am out of time right now. Sorry.

OH SLICK SHOES can kick off the griffons? Imma bully those freak on Bitterfrost. Need ma berries.

[Rising Blade.9206]

Rocket boots - mobility and long jump shenanigans along with rifle 5

Battering ram- when you don't want your enemy to be in your face and your other knockback skills are on cooldown. decent breakbar damage, traited version with gadgeteer seems to be a bit broken since it becomes an instant cast, surprised it hasn't been fixed yet

throw mine- similar to battering ram and works best with the gadgeteer trait, removes boons so it helps if you're against a mob that has protection or any other boon

slick shoes- decent if you're being chased and want to get out of combat fast

AED-  decent CC though the heal isn't that reliable since mobs attack either too fast or too slow and mobs tend to have knockbacks that interrupt your casting. useful if you're skipping the radiation room in thaumanova and works best with gadgeteer and automated medical response, but you need to precast it before hitting the health threshold to get the instant cooldown, you're going to need to learn a bit to use this gadget.

kits

grenade kit- if you want to tag mobs and deal damage

mortar kit- if you want to tag mobs at a long distance and get some lingering AoE fields

flamethrower - ol reliable. the whole HoT storyline would've been shorter if the devs made engi PCs whip out their flamethrower

toolkit- pry bar just feels satisfying to hit but most of the time it's a good kit to get for the shield and magnet

medkit - if you're running with a friend and you want to help out with healing, otherwise the swiftness on medkit 5 is nice

elixir gun- AA damage may be bad but skill 4 is decent for getting some distance and skill 5 is great for cleansing condis

 

[Eekasqueak.7850]

I've used rocket boots to cheese some jumping puzzles but other than that not much use out of them.