Engineer should have an opt in weaponswap trait

[Atmaweapon.7345]

The design of the game and engineer in general has evolved since the start of the game and with the inclusion of weapon mastery, it's about time that Engineer had the ability to weaponswap. Just because it was originally designed around kits as the weapon-swap doesn't make that the most optimal or fun decision among the many that were made since its inception (case in point, Turrets inspired by Team Fortress 2 being left in the dust, the slew of skills that had drawbacks for no reason that were reworked, and random elixirs.)

Just make some room in the Firearms trait like so:

1. Modified ammunition now the minor Adept trait. Effect reduced to 1% increased strike damage per condition.
2. Sharpshooter merged with Serrated Steel.
3. Add trait Grandmaster Major trait Mobile Arsenal: Allows you to weaponswap in combat with an 8 second cooldown, but causes kits to obey the weaponswap cooldown (not when exiting.) Additionally, causes finished Auto-attack chains to trigger Explosive Burst and 3 consecutive ranged auto-attacks to trigger Explosive Volley.

• Explosive Burst: Causes an Explosion that deals (1.0) damage and inflicts 3 seconds of burning
• Explosive Volley: Fires 3 Explosive projectiles that each deal (.6) damage and inflict 1 second of burning.

        4. Juggernaut now affects all kits and grants 12% strike damage for 6 seconds instead of Might. (Now triggers immediately upon entering a kit.)

 

Explosive Burst and Explosive Volley are meant to trigger Big Boomer and Thermal Vision since lack of weapon swap doesn't allow you to trigger these effects easily. Explosive Volley's 3 consecutive shots rule is meant to add flavor to the range rotation beyond pressing abilities off cooldown. The Juggernaut change is here to make kits superior to Mobile Arsenal in Power builds.

Mobile Arsenal grants an absurd auto-attack boost (30%ish percent increase to Power melee, 60% to Power Rifle) because of the opportunity cost of giving up 12% strike damage from Juggernaut which affects everything else you do. Juggernaut is meant for the kit swapping builds where you're auto-attacking less than 50% of the time while Mobile arsenal's drawback means that you have to auto-attack significantly more often. Coupled with the massive disparity in damage between melee/ranged autos, this is the best solution to allow Rifle/X builds to deal passable damage.

 

Edited September 25, 2023 by Atmaweapon.7345

[Zzik.5873]

Engineer not having weapon swap make no sence anymore. Kit do act like weapon, but it would hurt to have a real weapon swap, would open a little bit of fresh air on engi.

[Sobx.1758]

Sure -the very moment other classes get no cd kits and -rather flexible- f1-5 skills.

 

e: Actually I take that back, because the rest of your tacked on changes are just as weird and out of place.

Edited September 24, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[SeTect.5918]

Why are people trying to increase auto attack damage? stop this please.

We dont need to push auto attack damage.

 

14 hours ago, Atmaweapon.7345 said:

Additionally, causes Auto-attack chains to trigger Explosive Burst and 3 consecutive ranged auto-attacks to trigger Explosive Volley.

• Explosive Burst: Causes an Explosion that deals (1.0) damage and inflicts 3 seconds of burning
• Explosive Volley: Fires multiple Explosive 3 projectiles that each deal (.6) damage and inflicts 1 second of burning.

Not sure what u mean. With chains you mean on the 3rd hit of the auto attack?
A 1.0 multiplicator or should this mean something else? I mean...Do you know how strong this is?
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PeQAIjRgBhj9ybjH-DSIYRUwXG1mAVUA2OAqA-e
^this is a basic scrapper dps build. You could do the same with holo, the stats are basically the same.
2557 power. This does not include might. so this would mean the skill base damage + 2557. This does not even include other % damage bonuses:
As for comparison, according to the build editor, the 3rd attack of hammer auto attack does 1745 damage WITH all the % damage bonuses.
That would make you just permanently pressing auto attack. Hammer 3 is already worse than hammer auto attack.

Stop making auto attack better than it already is.

However for me, i dont care if they include weapon swap on engi or not. Hammer is the best power weapon and if you get access to sword or mace it wouldnt even increase your damage because these are poor options atm. Mainly because you can use hammer on holo and mechanist now and mace/sword dont have skills 4 and 5 power options because you are forced to use offhand pistol. It wouldnt change much. as for condi, mace is trash anyway so you only have double pistol anyway as option.

I really dont like the other changes you suggested tho. They seem kinda random and 1. i dont like kitcamping gameplay, thats why i dont like the juggernaut trait at all and 2. i dont like boosting auto attacks, even less if these boosts are as op as you suggested them to be.

I m in for merging Sharpshooter with Serrated_Steel tho! But not for another dmg trait but for something defense or QoL based.

Edited September 24, 2023 by SeTect.5918

[Matoro.9708]

I see this as pigeonholing into explosives rather than opening up weapon swap lol

[jason.1083]

Honestly, on one hand I've grown to like Engi not having a weapon-swap, I might even go as far and say that even adding a second weapon set to swap to if out of combat was a mistake. 

Although I do prefer to play kit-less I still don't think that we should get a weapon-swap, what we should get is improvements so we can preform equally without a second weapon set. Those don't necessarily have to be as simple as to make kits be on par with a weapon set so we can use those instead, but to adjust all skills/traits in a way so combined they are of equal capability to a different class with 2 weapon sets available to it. 

[Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365]

We do have a weapon swap trait. Its called streamlined kits

[Gendalfs.7521]

Only Mechanist could get weapon swap, because we mainly work with signets.

[Atmaweapon.7345]

5 hours ago, SeTect.5918 said:

Why are people trying to increase auto attack damage? stop this please.

We dont need to push auto attack damage.

 

Not sure what u mean. With chains you mean on the 3rd hit of the auto attack?
A 1.0 multiplicator or should this mean something else? I mean...Do you know how strong this is?
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PeQAIjRgBhj9ybjH-DSIYRUwXG1mAVUA2OAqA-e
^this is a basic scrapper dps build. You could do the same with holo, the stats are basically the same.
2557 power. This does not include might. so this would mean the skill base damage + 2557. This does not even include other % damage bonuses:
As for comparison, according to the build editor, the 3rd attack of hammer auto attack does 1745 damage WITH all the % damage bonuses.
That would make you just permanently pressing auto attack. Hammer 3 is already worse than hammer auto attack.

Stop making auto attack better than it already is.

However for me, i dont care if they include weapon swap on engi or not. Hammer is the best power weapon and if you get access to sword or mace it wouldnt even increase your damage because these are poor options atm. Mainly because you can use hammer on holo and mechanist now and mace/sword dont have skills 4 and 5 power options because you are forced to use offhand pistol. It wouldnt change much. as for condi, mace is trash anyway so you only have double pistol anyway as option.

I really dont like the other changes you suggested tho. They seem kinda random and 1. i dont like kitcamping gameplay, thats why i dont like the juggernaut trait at all and 2. i dont like boosting auto attacks, even less if these boosts are as op as you suggested them to be.

Im in for merging Sharpshooter with Serrated_Steel tho! But not for another dmg trait but for something defense or QoL based.

The weaponswap trait isn't intended for the highest parsing dps builds, it's for ease and massive quality of life by allowing you to run different utilities. Buffing auto-attacks in this manner helps trigger specific traits that otherwise require kits to pull off effectively and equalizes Rifle with melee so that you can run with Rifle/melee builds. It's "pushing auto attack damage" in the sense that it's the most efficient way to do this with the more casual playstyle the trait is meant to open up for general content because giving up 12% Strike damage for all attacks for better autos is a tall order.

If you don't care about weapon swap then that's fine. The only casualty of this change is the shifting of one boring trait.

Getting Stability on any kit is a massive QoL buff. Being able to run different utilities instead of Grenades is a massive QoL buff. The only loser in this sense are condi builds that only get extra strike damage but Engineer generally doesn't run condi in open world.

Edited September 24, 2023 by Atmaweapon.7345

[SeTect.5918]

55 minutes ago, Atmaweapon.7345 said:

The weaponswap trait isn't intended for the highest parsing dps builds, it's for ease and massive quality of life by allowing you to run different utilities. Buffing auto-attacks in this manner helps trigger specific traits that otherwise require kits to pull off effectively and equalizes Rifle with melee so that you can run with Rifle/melee builds. It's "pushing auto attack damage" in the sense that it's the most efficient way to do this with the more casual playstyle the trait is meant to open up for general content because giving up 12% Strike damage for all attacks for better autos is a tall order.

If you don't care about weapon swap then that's fine. The only casualty of this change is the shifting of one boring trait.

Getting Stability on any kit is a massive QoL buff. Being able to run different utilities instead of Grenades is a massive QoL buff. The only loser in this sense are condi builds that only get extra strike damage but Engineer generally doesn't run condi in open world.

Engineers generally dont run condi in open world..well

Trailblazers and celestial gear offer the most defense/damage in open world. Power builds have no good stat combinations to get both good sustain and damage in 1 build. 

Condi and cele are dominating open world. 

 

Anyway

You dont want that grenades are used in almost every build...but yet you want that the juggernaut trait also applies to them?

 

I dont think Camping kits gameplay is a good thing to support. 

There is another trait in alchemy that Regens hp each sec while u on a kit. Imo both juggernaut and that one should be reworked to give their bonuses on swapping to the kit with a 2-3 sec ICD but slightly better bonuses than they have now. But thats another topic.

 

About the Auto attack thing: 

I mean sure, make every third hit an explosion to trigger traits, i m fine with that, but please dont make it that overpowered. 

A 1.0 multiplicator for that is far too much. Make it like 0.1 at best. Thats still ~260 dmg + %-bonuses and crits. It just has to trigger explosion traits and not dealing like 20k+ dmg on crit. Not to mention the burn you added which deals damage too.

 

But if you have 2 weaponsets dont you have access to more explosions anyway? 

Fair, hammer only has an explosion on skill 2 but it has only 6 sec CD. 

Rifle has explosion on Auto attack.

Mace has explosion on Auto attack.

Pistol has no explosion (even tho Auto attack has explosion Animation).

Sword has no explosion. 

 

At this point i dont understand why you dont just suggested explosions for sword and pistol instead of making this so overcomplicated with the 3rd attack and triggering an extra attack which inflicts this and that for that duration.

[Atmaweapon.7345]

1) I did include an addendum to try to clarify that it would now immediately trigger upon entering a kit.

2) A 1.0 multiplier is literally just Aim-assisted Rocket. Aim assisted Rocket does not hit for 20k damage, more like 6k+. The fact that it's a trait attack makes it deal significantly less damage than abilities like Hammer chain 2 and Surprise Shot.

3) It's not complicated. Get an extra attack on 3 consecutive auto-attacks. This attack has the effects to trigger mechanics that would otherwise require kits for 100% uptime.  Ranged attacks get a bigger effect for effectively becoming chain attacks. What would be far more complicated and tedious programming wise would be to manually alter each auto-attack to be an Explosion + cause Burn when traited rather than just building in an extra attack into said trait.

[SoulGuardian.6203]

Thought Mechanist is the right candidate for that weapon swap, since we only have 3 F skills and none if mech is inactive.