Engineer class mechanic and kit overhaul suggestion

[Panda.1967]

Over the years Engineer has had a large number of balance issues crop up, the vast majority of which can ultimately be attributed to either Kits or Toolbelt skills.

Engineer's have no weapon swap as a direct result of having Kits, and yet Kits are a UTILITY skill resulting in the possibility of not even using a kit at all. Engineers who choose not to use kits are punished by this fact. Most kits aren't even balanced around the idea of being a "weapon replacement" either, only Grenade & Mortar seem to hit that mark, and Flamethrower seems like they half-kitten tried at one point.

Toolbelt skills, on the other hand, have crippled most engineer utility skills. Elixirs have had their effects literally split in half... Most gadgets have straight up better skills as their Toolbelts than the actual Utility skill... The toolbelts of Turrets are currently the only part of turrets that are even worth anything... and toolbelt skills for Kits, Exceeds, & Wells are actually not as problematic...

Ok... so onto the suggestion now...

Kits as Class Mechanic
I know what some of you may be thinking right now, "If you make kits into the class mechanic then how am I supposed to keep using my multi kit swap build?". My answer, if you are using only 1 or 2 kits then you'd find this may actually improve things quite a bit. If you are using 3+ kits, you are part of the problem. If you don't use kits currently, then good news, you can continue to ignore kits if you choose, just now you'll always have them available.

How would this work exactly you may ask? Simple, Kits were originally divided into 2 types Weapon Kits and Device Kits. These type distinctions are actually the reason why most kits aren't balanced as weapons even. Device Kits were balanced as if they were a full set of utility skills. My suggestion would actually return this distinction, but in a way that benefits the class as a whole. Engineers would get access to 2 Kits, 1 Weapon Kit & 1 Device Kit. The F1 skill would become "Kit Swap" which simply switches which kit is your active kit (similarly to revenants Legend Swap skill). Swapping from your weapon to a kit would be done with the weapon swap for a more natural action flow. F2 & F3 would become the toolbelt skills of your 2 chosen kits.

Weapon Kits will include Grenade Kit, Flamethrower, & Mortar Kit. The orbital Strike toolbelt skill for Mortar Kit would be brought in line with other weapon kit toolbelts. Device kits would be Med Kit, Bomb Kit, Elixir Gun, and Tool Kit. Device kits will each align to a different utility skill type and all of their skills will be considered as or interact with that skill type. Med Kit would be Gadget, Elixir Gun would be Elixir, Tool Kit would be Turret, and Bomb Kit would be Trap (Traps would become a new Engineer utility skill to replace Kits). Two additional weapon kits should be added as well as 1 more Device kit (More on this later).

New Utility skill type - Traps
This has been a frequent suggestion for Engineers. Traps as a utility skill type makes a whole lot of sense for engineers and a few existing Engineer utility skills could easily be reworked into traps even. Net Turret, Throw Mine, & Slick Shoes immediately come to mind as candidates to become trap skills.

Net Turret, Throw Mine, & Slick Shoes reworked into traps leaves 1 more utility skill needed to fill out the trap type as well as possibly a heal and an elite (though at this point we'd be on par with other professions regarding heals and elites at this point, so for now I'll skip them).  For this last Utility trap I'm thinking something like a shock trap that applies Vulnerability & Weakness while dealing periodic damage to enemies within the traps area when triggered.

Toolbelt skills - What happens?
With Kits taking over as the class mechanic, toolbelt skills from utilities would be going away. But don't worry, they won't be completely removed, rather we'd be seeing a few reworks.

Elixirs would receive 2 charges and will now always use the Toss Elixir variant. Effects of the original Elixir will be merged into their thrown variant if different (Elixir B, Elixir R, & Elixir U). Elixir X needs a complete rework.

Turrets will have their toolbelt skills as Flip-over skills replacing Detonate Turret. Detonate Turret will be a secondary flip-over skill available while the Toolbelt skill is on cooldown.

The Toolbelt skills for Gadgets would require a slightly different approach. Launch Battering Ram would work fine as a flip-over skill for Personal Battering Ram giving you a short period of time after launching a target that you can then launch the battering ram to cripple and daze them. Rocket Kick could also work as a Flip-over, though it would work better to be split from Rocket Boots entirely. Detection Pulse would absolutely have to become it's own skill. The functionality of Utility Goggles and Detection Pulse are so situational that neither one could function as a flip-over skill. Detection Pulse would actually be the perfect choice to convert into a new Gadget to fill in the gap created by turning 2 Gadgets into Traps even.

The Toolbelt skills for Net Turret, Throw Mine, & Slick Shoes would all be reworked into their form as trap skills. For example, Throw Mine & Mine Field would be merged together when reworked as a trap. Slick Shoes as a trap would apply its current effect to enemies that trigger it or enter the area while granting superspeed to allies in the effect. Net Turret... well Net Attack just does the same thing Net Turret already does anyways... it'd be better to just incorporate the turrets overcharge effect into it's trap rework.

What about the 5th Utility skill?
If you've gotten this far, then this question has probably crossed your mind by now. All of these changes put us at having 4 Utility skill types with only 4 Skills each when Engineer has always had 5 skills each for its Utility skills instead of having a 5th Utility skill type. There are 2 options for addressing this. Option 1) Create a  brand new 5th Utility skill for each of the 4 engineer skill types. Option 2) Create a whole 5th Utility skill type for Engineer. Option 1 is the easier route since it'd be working within established skill types for the engineer. Option 2 however would allow for far more creativity with new skills by not being limited to the concept and design space of Elixir, Trap, Turret, & Gadget.

Elite Specs
With the class mechanic changed Engineer elite specs would need some revisions to work with the new mechanic. Luckily this is actually a very easy task.

Scrapper would have the Toolbelt skills for it's utilities reworked slightly and packaged as a new Scrapper only Device Kit, the Gyro Kit. The Gyro Kit replaces the Scrappers ability to select a Device Kit, and uses Function Gyro as it's Toolbelt skill. Since this kit is for an elite spec and removes access to choosing your Device Kit, it will need to be beefed up some as simply packaging the toolbelt skills as a Kit is a bit on the weak side... so I propose each of the 5 Gyros should provide a small passive effect while the Gyro Kit is set as your active kit. Medic Gyro could passively pulse Regeneration to the Scrapper, Blast Gyro could grant Might, Bulwark Gyro gives either Protection or Aegis, Purge Gyro grants Endurance, & Shredder Gyro grants Fury. Function Gyro really needs some adjustments to make it more viable in PvE... for this I would suggest making it cause you're Gyros to grant their passive benefits to allies in the target area for a duration in addition to it's current effects. If Gyro kit is not your active kit, the passive benefits are disabled until you switch kits again. NOTE: you do not have to be in the Kit for it to be your Active Kit, it just has to be the currently selected kit via Kit Swap.

Holosmith currently is the only engineer eSpec that can ignore kits without suffering. Photon Forge would become a new Weapon Kit unique to Holosmith and replaces the Holosmith's ability to select a Weapon Kit. The Toolbelt skills of Exceeds are by far some of the best toolbelt skills for the engineer and really round out the Holosmith's toolkit perfectly. Because of this Holosmith will lose access to Utility Kits in favor of having all 5 Exceed toolbelt skills as F1-F5. The heat mechanic should ideally be expanded upon to affect all weapons in some way... even if it was simply reworked to grant access to a new skill in place of the Auto Attack for each main-hand weapon when Overheated...

Mechanist creates a problem as it's mechanic replaces all toolbelt skills with the mech... and Mechanist doesn't do well without kits due to the lack of weapon swap... so... I propose for Mechanist with this change they simply give Mechanist weapon swap. The Mech can still replace the whole class mechanic if the Mechanist gets access to weapon swap.

Kit Changes
With Kits as the class mechanic, there are some changes that would have to happen. First and foremost, any kit tagged as a Weapon Kit must be balanced as if they were a full weapon. Bomb Kit would have all of it's bombs function as Traps, and count as Traps for traits and relics. All skills for Elixir Gun will be considered Elixir skills. Med Kit will have all of it's skills tagged as Gadgets. Flamethrower needs a complete overhaul to make it actually viable as a weapon. Toolkit should have all of it's skills interact with Turrets in similar ways as how it's auto attack repairs them. Box of Nails could grant barrier to turrets, Pry Bar could temporarily increase their radius, Gear Shield could trigger the Reflective Shield from Experimental Turrets, and Magnet could retrigger their Overloads.

I stated earlier that 2 new weapon kits would be needed... Currently we have Grenade Kit which is a Power/Condi kit, Flamethrower which is also a Power/Condi kit, and Mortar Gun which is oddly enough a Support... Grenades should probably be changed into a more Power focused kit, Flamethrower should go full Condi, and Mortar could go heavier on the support... with that we would then just need a Melee/Close range Power kit and a long Ranged Condi Kit to finish things out...

[Jerus.4350]

As a multi kit enjoyer, no thanks.  Massively overhauling the class to homogenize it into the same play style as most other professions has absolutely no appeal to me.  Next you’ll be asking for cool downs on thief weapons and single attunement Ele builds.  Nope nope nope.

[Panda.1967]

Just now, Jerus.4350 said:

Next you’ll be asking for cool downs on thief weapons and single attunement Ele builds.

Will never be asking for those. Thief just needs the initiative costs on many of its older weapons re-evaluated because a lot of them are too high. As for Elementalist attunements, an option for single element has appeal having come to GW2 from GW1, but that just simply isn’t possible without creating unnecessary issues for elementalist, and the current system works just fine for them. Engineer on the otherhand legitimately suffers because of the design of kits and toolbelt skills.

[draxynnic.3719]

No thanks.

10 hours ago, Panda.1967 said:

Toolbelt skills, on the other hand, have crippled most engineer utility skills. Elixirs have had their effects literally split in half... Most gadgets have straight up better skills as their Toolbelts than the actual Utility skill... The toolbelts of Turrets are currently the only part of turrets that are even worth anything... and toolbelt skills for Kits, Exceeds, & Wells are actually not as problematic...

Here's the thing: Engineer's design is about getting more from their utility choices than other professions. This could be weapons, in the form of kits - but the function of the toolbelt is that even non-kit utilities are a two-for-one deal. The toolbelt skill sometimes being better than the actual utility skill is not inherently a problem (except for mechanists), what's important is that the combination is worthwhile. This is why the toolbelt skills on kits are typically a bit weaker than on other utility skills, and why mechanist signets are so strong (they have to be good enough to compete with a kit without a toolbelt skill).

Turrets are their own issue, but turrets having been destroyed nearly a decade ago and never revisited is a reason to redesign turrets, not the entire profession.

[Panda.1967]

10 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Here's the thing: Engineer's design is about getting more from their utility choices than other professions. This could be weapons, in the form of kits - but the function of the toolbelt is that even non-kit utilities are a two-for-one deal.

Conceptually, that was a great design for engineers... but in practice it has actually been the bane of engineers existence. Engineer utilities are often weaker than similar utility skills on any other profession, and only become comparable once you add in the toolbelt skill. For most of the games life this wasn't really too much of an issue since Core, Scrapper, and Holosmith still had full access to their toolbelt skills (minus elite toolbelt for Scrapper & Holosmith). But as soon as Mechanist came out, the problem was highlighted.

10 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

The toolbelt skill sometimes being better than the actual utility skill is not inherently a problem (except for mechanists), what's important is that the combination is worthwhile.

The existence of mechanist highlights and exacerbates this problem. As things stand currently, the ONLY utility skills of any real value to Mechanists are Signets and Kits. Most Gadgets are completely useless without their toolbelts, and Elixirs are literally at half strength without theirs. For both Elixirs and Gadgets, the combination makes them into full skills.

10 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

This is why the toolbelt skills on kits are typically a bit weaker than on other utility skills, and why mechanist signets are so strong (they have to be good enough to compete with a kit without a toolbelt skill).

Kit toolbelt skills are NOT weaker than on the other utility skills... the toolbelt skills for Kits are the some of the better ones for core engineer. Turrets actually have the weakest toolbelt skills. Mechanist signets are certainly strong enough to compete with kits, but there isn't a single core Engineer utility skill that can compete with a kit. eSpec utility skills for engineer all actually hit the design space of being competitive with kits for your Utility slot... but all other core Engineer utilities, not so much...

10 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Turrets are their own issue, but turrets having been destroyed nearly a decade ago and never revisited is a reason to redesign turrets, not the entire profession.

Turrets are far from the reason for this suggestion... I don't know where you got the idea that this whole redesign suggestion stems from turrets being utterly gutted nearly a decade ago... Turrets were merely a footnote in the entire suggestion... Turrets need a whole rework of their own to bring them up from being worse than racial skills, and that is a discussion for another topic.

Quite frankly I find the engineer kit playstyle dynamics boring and uninspired, and I'd rather just see kits removed from the game entirely... but instead of going down that route, I'm trying to find a way to make kits more enjoyable while opening up the design space for engineer for greater possibilities. Kits being a utility skill type has crippled the design space for Engineer weapons, they are the sole reason why Engineer weapons are so weak and why Engineers have no weapon swap. Turning them into the class mechanic instead of a Utility better justifies those limitations and makes them feel less like a punishment and more like a mechanical design. Toolbelts skills while great on paper, are a logistical nightmare. The combination of Utility Skill + Toolbelt for core engineer has always been balanced around the combination = the effectiveness of a Utility skill for any other profession. Kits and Turrets have both always been the outliers in that regard, Kits always being stronger and Turrets have always been weaker (even before the nerf). When HoTs came out Scrapper was still designed with the restriction that Utility + Toolbelt = same effectiveness as any other profession's utility, but when Gyros got replaced with Wells they finally changed that to aim towards making them compete with Kits. The combination competing with Kits has only existed with Elite Spec Utilities though, and they still don't even compete with Kit+Toolbelt.

Instead of trying to make everything compete with Kits, which will ultimately result in Engineer getting yet another round of utility skills nerfed into oblivion since if all of their utilities were to compete with kits they would undoubtedly be considered overpowered and nerfs will be demanded, again... why not just address the elephant in the room and make Kits into the class mechanic and rework toolbelts with their respective utility skills to make a more balanced utility set that doesn't have to be stronger than everyone else utilities just to compete with their own biggest outlier. We all know they can't nerf kits without creating even bigger issues, many of them actually need to be buffed so that they are on par with weapons even.

Also it's worth noting, that my suggestion still maintains the concept of getting more out of their utilities. Device Kits are meant to essentially provide the engineer with a whole second set of Utility skills, while Weapon Kits were meant to be their weapon swap substitute. My suggestion provides engineers with both a Weapon kit and a Device kit. Ideally, Device Kits would be reworked to provide greater utility than they currently do. Overall what I'm suggesting would be a buff to engineers.

Core Engineers can finally make greater use out of all of their utility skills. Scrapper would have some actual identity instead of just Engineer 2.0. Holosmith would basically have 2 full Utility skill sets available at all times. Mechanist, well mechanists get the least benefit from this but hey, they would get weapon swap. Mechanist is probably the only engineer spec that this change could be perceived as a nerf for... but this sort of change could also see Engineer weapons being buffed up to the level of other professions as well finally which would ultimately be a buff to Mechanist too.

[Sobx.1758]

20 hours ago, Jerus.4350 said:

As a multi kit enjoyer, no thanks.  Massively overhauling the class to homogenize it into the same play style as most other professions has absolutely no appeal to me.  Next you’ll be asking for cool downs on thief weapons and single attunement Ele builds.  Nope nope nope.

12 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Here's the thing: Engineer's design is about getting more from their utility choices than other professions. This could be weapons, in the form of kits - but the function of the toolbelt is that even non-kit utilities are a two-for-one deal. The toolbelt skill sometimes being better than the actual utility skill is not inherently a problem (except for mechanists), what's important is that the combination is worthwhile.

Agreed, the current engineer class mechanics are k. I don't see the point of the proposed by OP changes other than perhaps them hoping it will somehow lead to the overal class buffs. But there's no reason to think it will and I like the current version more.

Edited Wednesday at 08:22 PM by Sobx.1758

[Kris Knives.8513]

Holosmith, bladsworn, specter, reaper, harbinger, firebrand and druid are all, to various extents, successful kits which have been added to game as class mechanics so this suggestion makes sense to me.

I think the problem with Kits/Conjured weapons are that Kits don't do very well as accessory mechanics.  Kits are generally better balanced and more interesting with an anchor mechanic, higher power than normal weapons to make up for the fact you are locked into the kit and some limited way to customize the kit.

I think moving kits into the class mechanic slot is an excellent suggestion.  I very much see the potential but this would be a very large project as it would require a large rework of traits and almost all utility skills.  I'd personally be in favor of this as I think most engineer utility skills are both not fun and not useful, but given the effort and waves it would cause Anet would have to be 100% certain this was a big improvement to even consider it.  The implementation would have to be very clever.

I'm not of fan of the double flip mechanic on Revenant so that element of your proposal doesn't appeal to me personally.

I would suggest a better approach would be to have your specializations determine your kits.  That way each specialization could have the option to interact with its specific kit or serve as an anchor mechanic similar to Armored Shroud in Death Reaper.  For now you could just line up each kit with its logical spec but over time I'd hope they would be overhauled or replaced one at a time.

Explosives:  Grenade Kit
Firearms:  Flamethrower Kit
Inventions:  Med Kit
Alchemy:  Elixir Kit
Tools:  Tool Kit

Elite specs wouldn't really need to change:
Scapper:  Rescue Gyro becomes F3 or Add Rescue Gyro Kit
Holosmith:  No change - Holokit becomes F3
Mechanist:  No change - Mech skills just become F3-5 to make room for Kit 1 & Kit 2

I find the suggestion to make Trap an engineer line very interesting, however given we already have a "Let me just put this down on the ground right here" mechanic with Turrets I'm not sure it would be the best choice for Engineers.  Thumper Turret feels like a trap already.  Further Gyro's are just mobile traps if you think about it.  Unless they overhauled the turrets in some way I think engineer's would benefit from a more active utility line of some sort.  Maybe something like "Experimental Weapons" perhaps with it being an engineer variant on spiritual weapons?

 

[NotABandwagoner.9654]

1 hour ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Agreed, the current engineer class mechanics are k. I don't see the point of the proposed by OP changes other than perhaps them hoping it will somehow lead to the overal class buffs. But there's no reason to think it will and I like the current version more.

Claiming the current engineer mechanics are "k" without offering any solid reasoning feels like a lazy defense. The proposed changes by OP probably aim to address issues that go beyond your narrow view, and just because you don't see the point doesn't mean the changes lack merit. Maybe take a second to consider that not every adjustment is about handing out buffs.

You "like the current version more"? Great, but that's not exactly a convincing argument. What specifically makes it better? Or is it just because you’re comfortable with the status quo? Dismissing the potential for improvement suggests a pretty shallow understanding of game design. Maybe OP sees possibilities that you’re missing entirely.

[draxynnic.3719]

6 hours ago, Panda.1967 said:

Conceptually, that was a great design for engineers... but in practice it has actually been the bane of engineers existence. Engineer utilities are often weaker than similar utility skills on any other profession, and only become comparable once you add in the toolbelt skill. For most of the games life this wasn't really too much of an issue since Core, Scrapper, and Holosmith still had full access to their toolbelt skills (minus elite toolbelt for Scrapper & Holosmith). But as soon as Mechanist came out, the problem was highlighted.

The existence of mechanist highlights and exacerbates this problem. As things stand currently, the ONLY utility skills of any real value to Mechanists are Signets and Kits. Most Gadgets are completely useless without their toolbelts, and Elixirs are literally at half strength without theirs. For both Elixirs and Gadgets, the combination makes them into full skills.

I put it to you that if you're saying that it wasn't too much of an issue before mechanist, then it's still not too much of an issue. Mechanist leans heavily on signets because it's almost a different profession entirely, and even if hypothetically the other utility skills were given some compensation for losing the toolbelt skills when playing mechanist, it'd be hard to compete with signets because, at the bottom line, signets were designed to work and synergise with mechanist and the other utility skills weren't.

6 hours ago, Panda.1967 said:

Kit toolbelt skills are NOT weaker than on the other utility skills... the toolbelt skills for Kits are the some of the better ones for core engineer. Turrets actually have the weakest toolbelt skills. Mechanist signets are certainly strong enough to compete with kits, but there isn't a single core Engineer utility skill that can compete with a kit. eSpec utility skills for engineer all actually hit the design space of being competitive with kits for your Utility slot... but all other core Engineer utilities, not so much...

Really? Flamethrower is a few burn stacks, and in competitive it's on a long cooldown. Elixir gun is a stunbreak and a bit of regeneration. Throw Wrench is nothing to write home about. Big Ol' Bomb is a nice area CC but on a long delay - if you're not using the rest of the kit, there are far better options. The exceptions are medkit (because the toolbelt skill is essentially your self-heal when using medkit) and grenades (oh, look, grenades are overtuned, hands up who's surprised).

Turrets have weak toolbelt skills because the turrets themselves were supposed to be really strong and as important to engineer's identity as kits, but they were destroyed in 2015 and have been left in that state since.

And that really is a big part of the issue. Gadgets and elixirs are mostly intended for utility - they get used in competitive and in PvE situations where you need that utility, but your standard Snowcrows max-DPS build isn't going to have them by default, at best they'll be something you substitute in if you need a bit more CC or whatever. The DPS utilities for core engineer were supposed to be offensive kits and turrets, but when turrets do no damage, that just leaves offensive kits. Which is probably a large part of the reason why the utilities of the elite specs lean towards having a few DPS options - they're making up for the lack of such options in core. 

6 hours ago, Panda.1967 said:

Turrets are far from the reason for this suggestion... I don't know where you got the idea that this whole redesign suggestion stems from turrets being utterly gutted nearly a decade ago... Turrets were merely a footnote in the entire suggestion... Turrets need a whole rework of their own to bring them up from being worse than racial skills, and that is a discussion for another topic.

I don't have that idea - my comment was more of a footnote that wasn't in my original draft, but I realised I hadn't commented on turrets and I should. However, as described above, the state of turrets is a big part of the issue. Fixing turrets and then seeing how the profession feels with actually useful turrets should probably be prioritised well over a complete redesign of the profession that would make people who like how it plays now unhappy. 

6 hours ago, Panda.1967 said:

Quite frankly I find the engineer kit playstyle dynamics boring and uninspired, and I'd rather just see kits removed from the game entirely... but instead of going down that route, I'm trying to find a way to make kits more enjoyable while opening up the design space for engineer for greater possibilities. Kits being a utility skill type has crippled the design space for Engineer weapons, they are the sole reason why Engineer weapons are so weak and why Engineers have no weapon swap. Turning them into the class mechanic instead of a Utility better justifies those limitations and makes them feel less like a punishment and more like a mechanical design. Toolbelts skills while great on paper, are a logistical nightmare. The combination of Utility Skill + Toolbelt for core engineer has always been balanced around the combination = the effectiveness of a Utility skill for any other profession. Kits and Turrets have both always been the outliers in that regard, Kits always being stronger and Turrets have always been weaker (even before the nerf). When HoTs came out Scrapper was still designed with the restriction that Utility + Toolbelt = same effectiveness as any other profession's utility, but when Gyros got replaced with Wells they finally changed that to aim towards making them compete with Kits. The combination competing with Kits has only existed with Elite Spec Utilities though, and they still don't even compete with Kit+Toolbelt.

Quite frankly, I think that someone who admits that they just don't like the way the profession plays at the moment probably shouldn't be in charge of redesigning it.

Here's the thing - while absolutely recognising that engineer has problems, I like the base design. I like being able to choose between having lots of kits or having none and going all-in on the base weapon and elite spec mechanics (although it would be nice if there were more options for ranged base weapons). I like the toolbelt mechanic and building around Tools to make more use out of it. Your proposal feels like it would be throwing out a lot of babies with the proverbial bathwater. There's also no guarantee that the result would even be mechanically better - profession reworks much less ambitious than what you propose have usually been followed by months if not years of balance churn as the devs try to get the profession back into a proper state.

Things like a turret redesign would be necessary (even if ArenaNet doesn't want to touch them) with or without your proposal being implemented. I think that at the very least, beyond possibly a few simple numerical buffs, a turret redesign should be the first thing that gets done, because maybe turrets actually being good (even if made substantially different so they don't become abusive in conquest and afkfarming) would resolve a lot of your issues by providing a solid set of non-kit, DPS-oriented utilities where most of the power budget is in the base skill rather than the toolbelt skill. And if your proposal was to be implemented and that we put aside any subjective opinions over what playstyles and mechanics people like and don't like - it's still a bad thing to have an entire set of utility skills that are just plain bad, and the resources that would be demanded to both implement your suggestion (basically reworking pretty much everything in engineer and creating a whole new set of utility skills to replace kits) and to get it back into a balanced state afterwards would probably delay a turret rework for years.

[Coolster.2536]

On 9/24/2024 at 7:26 PM, Jerus.4350 said:

Next you’ll be asking for cool downs on thief weapons and single attunement Ele builds.  Nope nope nope.

Fire Wizard says hi! 😛 

On a serious note, I do think Engineer was a problem where kits massively overshadow our other utilities and also are integral to make Engineer builds function. Try playing Engineer in PvP without a kit. 90% of the sigils are useless because you can’t weapon swap, and the ones that are left aren’t really high impact. Then when you look at our core utilities, most of them don’t have a practical use or are so niche that having a kit fulfills the use case and then provides more on top of it. Making Kits the profession mechanic frees up our other utilities from competing with them, while also maintaining Kits’ place as an integral part of Engineers. 

But as Sobx put it, Engineer is in a fine place. It’s not the worst at anything, but it’s also the best at nothing. And because it’s fine, the devs have no good justification to go through with an overhaul. So all we can do is write up long wish lists and hope one of them comes true eventually.

[Mic.1897]

Please just leave it where it is. There is nothing wrong with how Engineer plays.

Except bomb kit. Buff bomb kit.

[Kris Knives.8513]

8 hours ago, Coolster.2536 said:

But as Sobx put it, Engineer is in a fine place. It’s not the worst at anything, but it’s also the best at nothing. And because it’s fine, the devs have no good justification to go through with an overhaul. So all we can do is write up long wish lists and hope one of them comes true eventually.

Well the balance team did say a goal they had was to make each skill relevant in at lest one game mode so I wouldn't say they have no good justification.  Plus there are non-balance considerations like if a power is actually fun to play or not.

That said, aren't all forum suggestions effectively design fan fiction?  Realistically any suggestions we make here outside of maybe minor QoL ideas are probably without value since we don't know the state of the dev team, code state, budget, upcoming features, internal priorities, most metrics, tolerance for failure/experimentation or so many other things.  Any one of which could sink what seems like a perfect good idea on the surface.  We're all here for fun, ANET might look at these threads to see what is bugging people but they are almost certainly going to come up with their own solutions to any problem they decide to tackle.

I think we should probably just have fun exploring ideas rather than get too serious how likely they are to get implemented.  Even the best suggestion, fully vetted by the best mind in the forum, is highly unlikely to ever get implemented in a form we would recognize as our idea.
 

9 hours ago, Coolster.2536 said:

Fire Wizard says hi! 😛 

😆

[Sobx.1758]

16 hours ago, NotABandwagoner.9654 said:

Claiming the current engineer mechanics are "k" without offering any solid reasoning feels like a lazy defense. The proposed changes by OP probably aim to address issues that go beyond your narrow view, and just because you don't see the point doesn't mean the changes lack merit. Maybe take a second to consider that not every adjustment is about handing out buffs.

You claim "current mechanics are k" isn't a valid argument, but all you have here is an empty "what if OP actually has an unknown reason nobody understands?!". If you know that valid reason nobody understands, maybe you should explain it in a way everyone can understand. But obviously you don't have one, so that's why this is all you have to say here.

16 hours ago, NotABandwagoner.9654 said:

You "like the current version more"? Great, but that's not exactly a convincing argument.

It's an infinitely better argument than your clear lack of any argument at all.

As for "why it's ok", it was explained throughout multiple previous threads -as well as this one- and you're well aware of that because you were in those threads too. Here's one of the examples of rather simple explanations nobody should have an issue understanding:

The class has its own good, distinctive playstyle and it performs well across multiple builds, specs and roles in every gamemode. Now, if you're supporting some random change, you should explain why the change is needed. For now players saying they like the current state of the class have easily a stronger argument than... your lack of any.

Edited Thursday at 02:36 PM by Sobx.1758

[Jerus.4350]

15 hours ago, Coolster.2536 said:

Fire Wizard says hi! 😛 

On a serious note, I do think Engineer was a problem where kits massively overshadow our other utilities and also are integral to make Engineer builds function. Try playing Engineer in PvP without a kit. 90% of the sigils are useless because you can’t weapon swap, and the ones that are left aren’t really high impact. Then when you look at our core utilities, most of them don’t have a practical use or are so niche that having a kit fulfills the use case and then provides more on top of it. Making Kits the profession mechanic frees up our other utilities from competing with them, while also maintaining Kits’ place as an integral part of Engineers. 

But as Sobx put it, Engineer is in a fine place. It’s not the worst at anything, but it’s also the best at nothing. And because it’s fine, the devs have no good justification to go through with an overhaul. So all we can do is write up long wish lists and hope one of them comes true eventually.

lol, yeah I thought of that as I hit submit.  I was just being hyperbolic trying to portray how much I dislike this idea while not violating policy 🙃.

 

If I were designing gw2 from the ground up, yeah probably would’t do kits this way knowing the problems they can cause.  I also wouldn’t do pet classes, skills without cooldowns, portals, or funky field damages like meteor/ice storm.  But if I cut everything that causes headaches for balance/design it would be a pretty dull game, gotta have some weird in there to abuse and play with otherwise where is the depth and fun?

 

 

Edit: and I’m pretty happy with where Engi is currently.  I only PVE really and the only bad build we have is pAlac, and it’s not even that bad.  I’m still in the honeymoon phase with spear condi quick scrapper, love that thing.

Edited Thursday at 07:48 PM by Jerus.4350

[Jski.6180]

Kits need an cd once you swap out of them (7-10 sec "wepon swap cd") but they also need to be a full on weapons set not just one roll. They are some what doing this with flame thrower stun brake.

[Panda.1967]

On 9/26/2024 at 9:33 AM, Sobx.1758 said:

You claim "current mechanics are k" isn't a valid argument, but all you have here is an empty "what if OP actually has an unknown reason nobody understands?!". If you know that valid reason nobody understands, maybe you should explain it in a way everyone can understand. But obviously you don't have one, so that's why this is all you have to say here.

You know if you bothered reading my topic beyond just the title I explained my reasons for the changes I’ve proposed multiple times.

1) Kits are the reason engineers can’t have weapon swap. On its own this is fine… what is bot fine however is that Kits are an optional Utility skill. This creates situations where an Engineer could have no weapon swap and nothing to compensate for the lack of a weapon swap either.

2) Toolbelts take away from engineer utility skills. Most engineer utility skills are significantly weaker than similar utilities from any other profession. Some of them are actually even worse than similar Racial skills. This is all because when calculating the total power value for any given Engineer Utility skill the associated Toolbelt skill is also factored in. Up until EoD this wasn’t a major problem, as it only really affected Engineer elite skills before then. With EoD we saw the introduction of a new eSpec that can’t really use any core Engineer utilities because most of their effectiveness is in the toolbelt.

3) because my suggestion involves removing one skill type from the utilities, a new skill type mist take its place. Traps have been a long requested new addition to Engineers utilities… the easiest way to add a new skill type is to use existing skills, so some of the more trap-like utility skills could become trap skills… but doing this still leaves the engineer short on skills so either a 2nd new skill type is needed or a new skill should be added for each skill type to fill in the gaps.

If you need more underlying reasonings to help you comprehend things…

1) Engineer weapons are extremely weak, and some of them (shortbow) can barely even be considered full weapons and need a swap to be useful.

2) engineer kits are a utility skill and cost engineers their weapon swap. None of them offer enough to justify the double opportunity cost.

3) engineers without kits are often crippled by their lack of a swap.

making kits into the class mechanic helps to resolve these three issues all at once.

4) engineer Utility skills are extremely weak without their toolbelts

5) mechanists existing highlighted this fact even more-so than it was already because of elite skills.

6) there is a lot of inconsistency in the balance of Utility+Toolbelt from one skill type to the next

removing toolbelt skills and reworking them into their respective Utilities or as entirely new skills where merging doesn't work, solves these problems.

[Sobx.1758]

36 minutes ago, Panda.1967 said:

You know if you bothered reading my topic beyond just the title I explained my reasons for the changes I’ve proposed multiple times.

I wasn't responding to you and that person apparently also "didn't bother reading the topic" considering his line of argumentation is nothing more than "but what if OP has a reason we don't know?!". Apparently your solutions to the problems aren't as clear cut as you think they are. Duh, perhaps they're not even solutions at all, more like wishful thinking that changing class mechanics will result in an overal class buff you want to see.

38 minutes ago, Panda.1967 said:

1) Kits are the reason engineers can’t have weapon swap. On its own this is fine… what is bot fine however is that Kits are an optional Utility skill. This creates situations where an Engineer could have no weapon swap and nothing to compensate for the lack of a weapon swap either.

It's not just kits, it's combination of kits and toolbelt. It was pointed out many times and still is pointed out in the post you just quoted.

Kits "being optional utility" is fine too. Plenty of people -especially, but not limited to, newer players- don't weapon swap on other classes despite it being an option for them. An ability to use or not use mechanics isn't a reason to change them nor it somehow makes those mechanics bad. If you're not using kits on engineer (or not weapon swapping on other classes), it's your -predominantly conscious- choice. Not sure why you suddenly think that you choosing not to use something is basis to be "compensated" for that decision in any way. If you want weapon swaps, play one of the 7 classes that can weapon swap.

43 minutes ago, Panda.1967 said:

2) Toolbelts take away from engineer utility skills. Most engineer utility skills are significantly weaker than similar utilities from any other profession.

No, toolbelts don't "take away from engineer utility skills", they're part of them. Each utility you pick gives you 2 different skills to use. Saying  that they're significantly weaker isn't true either, the power of utilities varies for other classes about just as much. But yeah, as I said, you're proposing these changes because you think they'll bring significant buffs to the class in one form or another -something the person I was responding to tried denying because "what if it's not about buffing the class but some other unknown reason?!".
Except if anet wanted to buff ANY part of the class -including the utilities- they could do it at any moment without you trying to bait buffs by reworking how the class plays. They don't do it because, again, the class has its own good, distinctive playstyle and it performs well across multiple builds, specs and roles in every gamemode.

53 minutes ago, Panda.1967 said:

1) Engineer weapons are extremely weak, and some of them (shortbow) can barely even be considered full weapons and need a swap to be useful.

False.

53 minutes ago, Panda.1967 said:

2) engineer kits are a utility skill and cost engineers their weapon swap. None of them offer enough to justify the double opportunity cost.

It's not that "kits cost engineer weapon swap", it's that "engineer profession mechanics are made to substitute weapon swap" and they work like they're intended to. You disliking the gameplay... wait, no, that's not even that. You disliking the optimal gameplay pattern of the class doesn't change anything about that. Want weapon swap? 7. SEVEN other classes. You're making your choices, there's no reason here for your proposed change other than trying to "make it more like some other classes" and baiting buffs to the class.

59 minutes ago, Panda.1967 said:

3) engineers without kits are often crippled by their lack of a swap.

Already addressed.

59 minutes ago, Panda.1967 said:

4) engineer Utility skills are extremely weak without their toolbelts

Not only false, but also how is "but without toolbelt skills!" even an attempted argument here? If you don't want to press the keys, it's your problem, not a problem with the class.

1 hour ago, Panda.1967 said:

6) there is a lot of inconsistency in the balance of Utility+Toolbelt from one skill type to the next

removing toolbelt skills and reworking them into their respective Utilities or as entirely new skills where merging doesn't work, solves these problems.

Because there's totally no balance inconsistencies of utiltiy skills for classes with weapon swaps, right? Surely weapon swap is what solves this issue everywhere in this game!