Is it time to give Engi a weapon swap?

[Kris Knives.8513]

My personal preferred solution would be to rebalance the kits as ammo skills and then give the engineer a weapon swap like other classes.  I think this could play our similar to the Firebrand.  Preferably this would part of a larger kit redesign.

If we're going a little outside of the box each kit, when empty, after a short cool down the skill could flip to a reload skill where the character re-arms the weapon and gaining a small buff effect, similar to a mantra.  I think this could make an interesting cadence to combat and allow for larger more impactful kit effects due to the risk reward.

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As for elementalists I'd suggest giving them a swap, but have it share cool downs between the weapons so you couldn't spam out fire and then swap to lay down even more fire attacks.

In order to balance this with conjured weapons I'd like to see those similarly turned into ammo style kits with the intent of them being weapons to switch to quickly for a situational burst of power.  The weapon in questions only regenerates ammo when you are attacking with the corresponding element, equipping a kit now counts as changing attunement for purpose of triggering abilities (counting as fully attuning to a new weapon for weavers) and no longer summons a second bundle item for allies.  Greatsword in this scenario becomes a four element weapon which only charges when you change attunements.  That or replace them entirely with a new line, I've always felt they were an awkward fit with the elementalist.

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Really though adding any sort of resource mechanic could work and they could go in some more interesting directions if they wanted to invest the time and effort.  If heat wasn't already already the cornerstone of the holosmith that could have been a very cool way to manage kits.  All these transform effects which replace your skills are basically just extra fancy kits when it comes down to it.  We currently lack a two stage resource mechanic such as you build up static using your weapon powers and then your utility powers consume static (we have a few which check the resource state such as Heat on holosmith but don't actually consume them).  That could be a good space for kits/conjured weapons to play around in if A-net was looking to make larger changes at some point.

[H K.4057]

I play Engineer specifically because it does not have weapon swap. It doesn't need it, and thematically feels better because of it. They already took the easy way out when they added weapon swap to Revenant. I'd probably stop playing the game if they added weapon swap to Engineer.

[draxynnic.3719]

On 1/5/2024 at 12:43 PM, H K.4057 said:

I play Engineer specifically because it does not have weapon swap. It doesn't need it, and thematically feels better because of it. They already took the easy way out when they added weapon swap to Revenant. I'd probably stop playing the game if they added weapon swap to Engineer.

Revenant was basically a case where, with the possible exception of mace/axe, the weapons were just too specialised for a profession which had no weaponswap and no other means of having more than one set of weapon skills available. Engineer is pretty much the opposite in that respect, since kits are a big part of the profession's identity, and even if you're not running kits, the core weapons were designed to be fairly versatile.

[raubvogel.5071]

yes it is

[CallousEye.5018]

I think from a design perspective this is just not something that makes sense.

Someone had a good point that Engi doesn’t have interaction with weapon swap sigils unless we take a kit and it makes sense to me that you could have weapon swap if you instead gave up having kits at all, but that sounds really awkward too.

I think we’d be better off having the kits themselves improved.

[Dark Red Killian.3946]

 Instead of just giving Engineer weapon swap, make weapon swap part of a specilization or elite specilization. This way, there is a trade off for allowing such an option. Just implementing it in the existing system without a trade off will just buff engineer when it doesn’t need to be. I think they could make it work this way without just giving it to engineers.

[draxynnic.3719]

1 hour ago, Dark Red Killian.3946 said:

 Instead of just giving Engineer weapon swap, make weapon swap part of a specilization or elite specilization. This way, there is a trade off for allowing such an option. Just implementing it in the existing system without a trade off will just buff engineer when it doesn’t need to be. I think they could make it work this way without just giving it to engineers.

Could work. Pretty close to how holosmith works, except that holosmith has a transform. Tradeoff could be something like the weaponswap having a shorter cooldown (like a warrior with Fast Hands), but swapping to a kit imposes a similar cooldown before you can swap back or to another kit.

[haineslake.8691]

I sure hope not. Been maining engineer since beta and to be honest I hope that kit builds make a return and become viable again. Nades shouldn't be the only option, and the other kits need to be improved. The class should keep their identity, meaning some level of complexity, instead of adding mostly passive utility skills like mech got. Engineer was/is the most fun to experiment with for me personally. It's time core engi gets some love and viability again.

[Jerus.4350]

4 minutes ago, haineslake.8691 said:

I sure hope not. Been maining engineer since beta and to be honest I hope that kit builds make a return and become viable again. Nades shouldn't be the only option, and the other kits need to be improved. The class should keep their identity, meaning some level of complexity, instead of adding mostly passive utility skills like mech got. Engineer was/is the most fun to experiment with for me personally. It's time core engi gets some love and viability again.

Power core can hit 40k, and it’s a lot of fun to play, but even that only takes nade/mortar 😅

[haattila.5974]

The only way i can see it without destroying the class identity is by transforming Kit to something similar to elem summoned weapon, but with a lower cd and no pickup consumable.


But then the biggest part of engi are sad one playing kitless build because they find gw2 too hard to handle

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

2 hours ago, haattila.5974 said:

The only way i can see it without destroying the class identity is by transforming Kit to something similar to elem summoned weapon, but with a lower cd and no pickup consumable.


But then the biggest part of engi are sad one playing kitless build because they find gw2 too hard to handle

That's an interesting hot take. It isn't sad people are playing kitless, what's sad is build diversity gets nuked from orbit because you are required to have a kit (and in most instances it's just grenade kit) if you want to be competitive in DPS. There are so little options in utility, and anyone claiming otherwise is just spinning a yarn. The only set up that bucks this trend is mechanist on the fact the mech actually is quite strong, and mech signets are actually quite useful.

And saying people playing kitless are sad "because they find it too hard" is just a pointless attack and trying to disparage people for wanting to play their way. There are more ways to play the game than the sweaters over at Snow Crows post.

Edited March 1 by Ravenwulfe.5360