How to properly improve core engineer

[Opopanax.1803]

I don't think f5 would make sense because of how toolbelts are based off of utilities, so I guess I don't see anything yhat is feasable or a cleaner solution yet.

Unless they scrapped toolbts altogether and simply left an f1 & f2 slots for utility kits. That might work...

[Zex Anthon.8673]

@Opopanax.1803 said:I don't think f5 would make sense because of how toolbelts are based off of utilities, so I guess I don't see anything yhat is feasable or a cleaner solution yet.

Unless they scrapped toolbts altogether and simply left an f1 & f2 slots for utility kits. That might work...

Holosmith already removed the F5 toolbelt. You could remove the F1 and F5 skills and still have access to all the utility toolbelts. I would shift them around for a cleaner UI so that F1-F3 are utility toolbelts and F4/F5 are kits.

By removing the F5 toolbelts you are losing some good abilities.

Toss elixir x is a pretty good cc, though it has a 120s CD. You can get it down to ~83s CD with traits. Id say it could be added to the elixir x skill as an AOE on cast.

Med Pack Drop Is a great sustain skill, but it could be added to supply drop with some CD adjustment.

Orbital Strike could be moved into Mortar kit to buff it in exchange for the two kit limit.

There are ways you can add these toolbelts back in, however you also have to consider you are getting a free kit in exchange for dropping these skills. And a buffed kit at that.

[Opopanax.1803]

Oh, I get that it could be done, it is just awkward.

However, anything that limits how many kits we can take down to around 2 damage kits will allow engi to actually grow. Right now, max dps in many builds is based off max kits taken to piano the best abilities... and this limits what the devs can buff. Kits need to be reduced to how many can be taken. Ultimately, I could get behind the F5 idea, but it just isnt clean/uniform/predictable as far as the UI goes.

I still think a MH power weapon is an issue that ties in with kits. By not having a MH power build, you are already running into problems. Scrapper cant use shield, for instance, if wanting to build a power build. And this problem will persist with any Elite that doesn't have a MH power weapon. It's so limiting...

[Dace.8173]

Kits are not weapons, but they are the closest thing engineer gets to a weapon swap. Engineer probably doesn't have weapon swap because Anet ran out of development time for weapon skills during launch when they had to make all the kits and toolbelt skills, and deemed them good enough to supplant a second weapon like attunements for elementalist. Unfortunately, unlike elementalist, we have to slot the kits into our utility bar which could be used for gadgets, elixirs, or turrets. You say kits are optional, but 3-4 kits are required for engineer to hit dps benchmarks for PvE. In PvP you can certainly run no kits, but you are handicapping yourself by not taking a weapon swap. Swapping in and out of melee/range is important to be competitive and at the very least a second weapon/kit provides additonal utility in the form of mobility or damage mitigation.

As far as I understood it Engineer was never designed with a weapon swap, precisely because they were going to give them Kits. Kits were always intended to be our weapon swap. If I recall, they were more useful at launch, in the same fashion that turrets were more useful back in the day.

I don't think this is entirely true. Photon forge may effect kit strength to some extent, but I think the real issue is the fact that we can run 5 kits at the same time. Looking at this from a balance perspective, there is only so much utility (blocks, mobility, burst, cleanse, combos, cc) you can add to a build before it becomes overpowered. This means these utility skills must be distributed among all the kits. Elite specs can and should be balanced according to their cores not the other way around. Photon forge can always be toned down if the core class received a buff that also affects holosmith.

Being able to slot all our kits also plays a factor but if we are reducing the access to Kits down then the major limiting factor becomes Holosmith and any additional time they decide to reuse the Photon Forge mechanic. If they were to introduce another Elite with such a mechanic Kits would need to be rebalanced to account for that new mode and Holosmith (there is no logical reason why they wouldn't use it again being how it has actually worked). The more things you are having to balance Kits against the weaker they will become, ala the current issue. Toning Holosmith down for Kits is likely not going to go over well. Players would be asked to have a reduced number of Kits and a depowered Holosmith. It is far simpler to just not grant Holosmith such access. Then all you have to deal with are customers not happy that Kits were moved in the first place. This is also better for long-term balance. If the goal is to make Kits more useful and a good replacement for weapon swap I think forgoing Holosmith access to them is a better way of getting there.

It certainly may satisfy some people. However, a lot of players would miss the play style that comes with running multiple kits, myself included. Try playing rifle holosmith with elixir gun to get an idea of the game play i'm shooting for. There are so much synergy between these three sets that makes it very fun to play. Imagine a build centered around tool kit and bomb kit. Bomb kit for close range dps, and toolkit for damage mitigation and a pull to bring them back in range of bombs. You can technically play this build now and have access to that synergy, but you have to use two utility slots. Net turret is probably the best for the last utility, but now you have no condi cleanse or break stuns. Having kits on the utility bar feels unnecessarily constricting and moving them to the f bar would give core engineer some much needed breathing room when designing a build.

The moment you move Kits to the F key position you are already going to have people upset and missing the ability to run multiple kits. Running just two is really not a replacement for running three. If the idea is to make Kits more powerful and useful then they should be made more powerful and useful. If the idea is to keep a playstyle then Kits really shouldn't be touched. We already see what having access to a bunch of Kits has gotten us. Having access to multiple Kits has lead to them being weaker, overall. Being able to access two Kits and Holosmith is not going to do much to power them up. Let's keep in mind that for this idea to work you are going to have to sell players on A. giving up access to one Kit and B. giving up access to the Elite F key which is actually useful, which means this needs to actually be worthwhile. I have some serious doubts that the problems with Kits is that we can run with three as opposed to two. I really don't see removing access to just one Kit is going to do all that much to improve the situation. I suspect the end result would still be watered down. Maybe if we were talking about Engineer being able to run with four Kits and thus reducing it to half would improve overall balance, but that is not the case we are working with.

Lets take a look at what you remove by taking out the healing f skills.

The issue I stated wasn't that Med Kit couldn't do those things. As I stated before, running Med Kit to do that outside of running a Healer build is just insane. Swapping into Med Kit means you give up offensive power to gain access to something you already had access to beforehand. It really is not a good compromise and only benefits people who want to run a Healer build. We also encounter the previous problem I highlight, that if you run with two Kits then you are not really doing anything to actually make them more powerful. Kits will continue to be balanced against themselves and Holosmith which will always limit their potential. If Kits are not having to be balanced against themselves and Holosmith then ANet has more freedom to make them useful, which is supposed to be the aim. If the goal is to preserve the original Kit playstyle then it really is not worth moving them to the F bar as giving up one Kit is not going to do much to improve overall power.

Oh, I get that it could be done, it is just awkward.

It's no more awkward than playing Holosmith. With Holosmith you are already having to use F5 to swap into a different set of weapon skills. Moving Kits to F5 just takes something we are already used to and extending it to benefit Core Engineer as opposed to an Elite. Making Kits into a true weapon skill can also mitigate the power weapon issue. The Kits could be retooled to support power builds and thus give players an actual power weapon choice. However, after six years I do not see them ever making the change to adding an additional main hand weapon. This isn't a new issue and they stated they went with Elites to give players more weapon options. They clearly knew of the issue and they clearly went in a different direction. It's not a bad move from a business POV. If you add a weapon to one profession you will have to deal with angry customers who also wanted more weapons. It is sad, but true, that ANet tends to go with appeasement of angry customers, hence PvP having a large sway on overall balance. Tying them to Elites lets them give everyone new weapons. When you weigh the Engineer playbase against that of the rest of the game the choice is pretty clear. New weapons via Kits is an excellent sidestep to the entire issue as they aren't giving Engineer players new weapons but just moving the weapons they already have around some.

[Opopanax.1803]

Right, all of that could be done with f5, but lets be honest, it doesnt make sense even in holosmith to have f5 be a photon kit. It literally doesnt make any sense there. Perhaps it was the easiest choice for them. If they did this with utility kits, I could live with it. The balance of engi around multiple kits / max dps rotations from kits is a big problem; it needs to be fixed.

Regarding adding a weapon: I actually think adding a main hand weapon would be far easier than multiple kit and kit mechanic reworks, at least to begin with. I do agree that it would be a big undertaking, but compared to the rest of the big stuff than Engineer needs, 3 weapon slot skills is not even close to the amount of rework that is needed.

[Peutrifectus.4830]

I thought it would have been most reasonable to have placed photon forge in the elite slot and have prime light beam as it's f5 ability personally. The way it is now is practically the same, just reversed. (I know it means you can slot an elite of your choice but PLB is just so good XD)

[Dace.8173]

@Opopanax.1803 said:Right, all of that could be done with f5, but lets be honest, it doesnt make sense even in holosmith to have f5 be a photon kit. It literally doesnt make any sense there. Perhaps it was the easiest choice for them. If they did this with utility kits, I could live with it. The balance of engi around multiple kits / max dps rotations from kits is a big problem; it needs to be fixed.

Regarding adding a weapon: I actually think adding a main hand weapon would be far easier than multiple kit and kit mechanic reworks, at least to begin with. I do agree that it would be a big undertaking, but compared to the rest of the big stuff than Engineer needs, 3 weapon slot skills is not even close to the amount of rework that is needed.

It makes plenty of sense. It's been making sense since PoF. Instead of making use of an Elite toolkit skill you just gain a different ability. There is no reason for it not to, as the mechanic isn't too far off from other mechanics. The majority of the Engineer player base has easily transitioned to its use.

Also, adding a weapon may be mechanically simple but it is not easier in the grand scope of managing your customer base. What the customer base wants has a big effect on the mechanical aspect of the game. If you add one weapon to one profession other professions will want one and if you have players from eight other professions demanding more weapons then you either have to cave in and give them what they want or risk angering them. Those players will most certainly outnumber the Engineer players that benefit most from this, so that would constitute a lot of unhappy folks. This is why they went with Elites, it lets them add new weapons in a fashion that keeps their customer base happy. While changing Kits to an F skill is a bigger development undertaking it would create way fewer headaches for them in regards to customer relations. It sucks that other player desires have bearing on what Engineer players get but that dynamic plays out in every profession. The desires of non Elementalist players have effects on them and the same works for Ranger and Theif etc etc. The nature of running a faction based game.

@Peutrifectus.4830 said:I thought it would have been most reasonable to have placed photon forge in the elite slot and have prime light beam as it's f5 ability personally. The way it is now is practically the same, just reversed. (I know it means you can slot an elite of your choice but PLB is just so good XD)

Prime Light Beam is hands down more powerful than what other toolbelt skills do. If they placed it there it would be toned down in the extreme. It would also mean that Holosmiths would lose out on a core mechanic if they decided to run a different Elite. If someone came up with a Holosmith build that worked better with Mortar Kit, of which several exist, said player would be giving up the ability to use Photon Forge all together and thus locked out of a core feature of the Elite.

[Opopanax.1803]

@Dace.8173 said:

@Opopanax.1803 said:Right, all of that could be done with f5, but lets be honest, it doesnt make sense even in holosmith to have f5 be a photon kit. It literally doesnt make any sense there. Perhaps it was the easiest choice for them. If they did this with utility kits, I could live with it. The balance of engi around multiple kits / max dps rotations from kits is a big problem; it needs to be fixed.

Regarding adding a weapon: I actually think adding a main hand weapon would be far easier than multiple kit and kit mechanic reworks, at least to begin with. I do agree that it would be a big undertaking, but compared to the rest of the big stuff than Engineer needs, 3 weapon slot skills is not even close to the amount of rework that is needed.

It makes plenty of sense. It's been making sense since PoF. Instead of making use of an Elite toolkit skill you just gain a different ability. There is no reason for it not to, as the mechanic isn't too far off from other mechanics. The majority of the Engineer player base has easily transitioned to its use.

It doesn't make sense in that all other kits are utility skills. Photon forge is a kit that is bonded to f5, where a toolbelt skill should be, not a kit. It does not make sense in that f1-4 are all toolbelts, then it suddenly changes to a kit. There is nothing systematic about what they did with f5.

Has the playerbase learned it? Sure. Has it chopped up engineer mechanics? Yes.

I'd rather they redo kits than shove them into a chopped up f5 mechanic.

[Zex Anthon.8673]

@Dace.8173 said:The more things you are having to balance Kits against the weaker they will become, ala the current issue. Toning Holosmith down for Kits is likely not going to go over well. Players would be asked to have a reduced number of Kits and a depowered Holosmith. It is far simpler to just not grant Holosmith such access. Then all you have to deal with are customers not happy that Kits were moved in the first place. This is also better for long-term balance. If the goal is to make Kits more useful and a good replacement for weapon swap I think forgoing Holosmith access to them is a better way of getting there.

Core mechanics shouldn't be balanced against their elite specializations, it should be the other way around. Holosmith and Photon Forge are powerful because core engineer lacks any burst dps builds that can compete with the other professions. If core received a buff, in the form of stronger kits, then Photon Forge should be toned down because Holosmith has access to those very same kits. Photon Forge is balanced against its own overheat mechanic and the fact that it has a CD. Kits are not balanced against photon forge now and they never will be. Take a look at the current benchmarks, if kits were balanced against Photon Forge there would be a bigger discrepancy between condition holosmith and condition core. Both builds essentially use four kits.

@Dace.8173 said:The moment you move Kits to the F key position you are already going to have people upset and missing the ability to run multiple kits. Running just two is really not a replacement for running three. If the idea is to make Kits more powerful and useful then they should be made more powerful and useful. If the idea is to keep a playstyle then Kits really shouldn't be touched. We already see what having access to a bunch of Kits has gotten us. Having access to multiple Kits has lead to them being weaker, overall. Being able to access two Kits and Holosmith is not going to do much to power them up. Let's keep in mind that for this idea to work you are going to have to sell players on A. giving up access to one Kit and B. giving up access to the Elite F key which is actually useful, which means this needs to actually be worthwhile. I have some serious doubts that the problems with Kits is that we can run with three as opposed to two. I really don't see removing access to just one Kit is going to do all that much to improve the situation. I suspect the end result would still be watered down. Maybe if we were talking about Engineer being able to run with four Kits and thus reducing it to half would improve overall balance, but that is not the case we are working with.

A change like this is not all black and white. Currently you have the ability to slot 5 kits, not 3 as you stated. Limiting kits down to 2 would mean you could add more utility to dps kits (grenade kit has no utility currently) and you could add more dps to utility kits (toolkit and elixir gun). Moving kits to the F bar would mean that core could take advantage of kit synergies and weapon swap without using up their utility slots. This would be a good thing even if kits weren't buffed in conjunction. The fact that core cannot take two kits without severely handicapping themselves is incredibly limiting and is awful for build design.

@Dace.8173 said:The issue I stated wasn't that Med Kit couldn't do those things. As I stated before, running Med Kit to do that outside of running a Healer build is just insane. Swapping into Med Kit means you give up offensive power to gain access to something you already had access to beforehand. It really is not a good compromise and only benefits people who want to run a Healer build.

I made that statement assuming Med Kit would be buffed to include more self sustain and some damage. Sorry for not making it clear. Med kit should include more self sustain. If you take a look at any elementalist water set, they have just as much utility if not more in addition to self sustain and damage. Water staff, for example, has 2 water fields, 1 ice field, an 8s CD blast finisher, condition removal, and an area heal that heals self as well. Even the auto attack, which is similar to med blaster, heals for around the same amount without requiring boons and also heals self. If Med Kit was changed to include more self sustain, say make bandage blast drop bandages that you can pick up and medblaster deals damage and heals self. Then it would be worth it to swap to Med Kit, pop some sustain and drop fields, then swap out to combo with the fields.

@Opopanax.1803 said:Right, all of that could be done with f5, but lets be honest, it doesnt make sense even in holosmith to have f5 be a photon kit. It literally doesnt make any sense there. Perhaps it was the easiest choice for them. If they did this with utility kits, I could live with it. The balance of engi around multiple kits / max dps rotations from kits is a big problem; it needs to be fixed.

Regarding adding a weapon: I actually think adding a main hand weapon would be far easier than multiple kit and kit mechanic reworks, at least to begin with. I do agree that it would be a big undertaking, but compared to the rest of the big stuff than Engineer needs, 3 weapon slot skills is not even close to the amount of rework that is needed.

Why doesn't it make sense in the F5/F4? Druid uses F5 for CA. Firebrand uses F1-F3 for tomes. Necro uses F1 for shroud. Revenant uses F1/F2 for legends. The concept of using the F slots to add skill bar swapping is not strange or new in any way. Would it make more sense to have F1/F2 be kits and F3-F5 be toolbelts? I figured since holosmith already uses F5 that there is no point moving that around.

I agree that adding a main hand power weapon would be a good start. However, it does nothing to address the fact that Kits feel lackluster and constrain your utility bar.

[Dace.8173]

@Opopanax.1803 said:

@Dace.8173 said:

@Opopanax.1803 said:Right, all of that could be done with f5, but lets be honest, it doesnt make sense even in holosmith to have f5 be a photon kit. It literally doesnt make any sense there. Perhaps it was the easiest choice for them. If they did this with utility kits, I could live with it. The balance of engi around multiple kits / max dps rotations from kits is a big problem; it needs to be fixed.

Regarding adding a weapon: I actually think adding a main hand weapon would be far easier than multiple kit and kit mechanic reworks, at least to begin with. I do agree that it would be a big undertaking, but compared to the rest of the big stuff than Engineer needs, 3 weapon slot skills is not even close to the amount of rework that is needed.

It makes plenty of sense. It's been making sense since PoF. Instead of making use of an Elite toolkit skill you just gain a different ability. There is no reason for it not to, as the mechanic isn't too far off from other mechanics. The majority of the Engineer player base has easily transitioned to its use.

It doesn't make sense in that all other kits are utility skills. Photon forge is a kit that is bonded to f5, where a toolbelt skill should be, not a kit. It does not make sense in that f1-4 are all toolbelts, then it suddenly changes to a kit. There is nothing systematic about what they did with f5.

Has the playerbase learned it? Sure. Has it chopped up engineer mechanics? Yes.

I'd rather they redo kits than shove them into a chopped up f5 mechanic.

It still makes sense dude. I press F5 I gain a bunch of nifty new abilities. It acts like Kits but it is not 100% a Kit. With normal Kits you can stay in them for however long you want. Photon Forge is a limited time ability. Other Kits do not damage you if you use them for too long. Photon Forge does. The use of other Kits does not improve your other, non-Kit, abilities. Photon Forge does. While we can think of it as functioning similar to a Kit it has enough differences from Kits to clearly mark it as a unique mechanic that is related to, though not the same as, Kits.

If we restrict Photon Forge to just being another Kit then it really doesn't work at all. Behaving as just another Kit would mean a drop in power level and an overall decrease in effectiveness to everything else about Holosmith, from the utilities it introduces to the elite skill it has to the weapon it gives to you. All of those things depend on the non-kit aspects of Photon Forge to enhance gameplay and power of the Holosmith. If Holosmith's F5 didn't make any sense then pretty much none of the Elites make much sense as they all take normal aspects a profession and change it in some fashion. Which is why they are so nifty and fun, they expand the possible gameplay options and uses of normal abilities. Firebrand and Soulbeast, as just two examples, would not be possible if we limited them to just ordinary uses of the Core's current abilities. If we didn't have Holosmith to show us the different ways the Kit concept could be used then we wouldn't even be having a conversation about how Kits could be improved and made useful in a fashion that actually possibility of being done. The conversation would instead be limited to trying to figure out what other things about Core Enginer that could be improved to make it more viable.

It's really no different than adapting to playing with other professions who do different things with their F keys.

[Opopanax.1803]

Using it as f5 doesn't follow toolbelt rules. It's literally plunked in there with toolbelts. It is literally taking up a toolbelt skill slot. Anet literally forced it in because they didn't want to figure out a different way to do it or go to f6. It couldn't be more out of place.

If anet wants to stick with toolbelts, they should figure out a different way to do the mechanic of kits.

I would not be opposed to hacking toolbelts and making them utilities and going only to f1-2 for kit slots, then add f3 as an additional kit mechanic for photon forge kit for holosmith. THAT would make sense.

As it is now, PF couldn't be more out of place in the toolbelt skill slots.

[Dace.8173]

@"Zex Anthon.8673" said:Core mechanics shouldn't be balanced against their elite specializations, it should be the other way around. Holosmith and Photon Forge are powerful because core engineer lacks any burst dps builds that can compete with the other professions. If core received a buff, in the form of stronger kits, then Photon Forge should be toned down because Holosmith has access to those very same kits. Photon Forge is balanced against its own overheat mechanic and the fact that it has a CD. Kits are not balanced against photon forge now and they never will be. Take a look at the current benchmarks, if kits were balanced against Photon Forge there would be a bigger discrepancy between condition holosmith and condition core. Both builds essentially use four kits.

You are not going to sell people on making radical changes to Core Engineer if you have to nerf Holosmith to get there. You are going to have a lot of unhappy people if Holosmith has to be toned down to serve moving Kits around. Still, I stand by my point, if you remove Holosmith from being able to use Kits then you are given more freedom to make Kits worthwhile and thus the change worthwhile. Trying to preserve a specific playstyle is not going to work if the goal is to make Kits more useful and powerful. Trying to keep Holosmith in the mix limits the overall potential of moving Kits from utility slots to the F slot. If you want Kits to stop feeling lackluster then sacrifices would need to be made in order to get there, and no moving Kits to the F slot is not a real sacrifice being as how those skills would, hopefully, be replaced. Nor is giving up the use of just one Kit a true sacrifice. This feels too much like trying to have one's cake and eating it too.

A change like this is not all black and white. Currently you have the ability to slot 5 kits, not 3 as you stated. Limiting kits down to 2 would mean you could at more utility to dps kits (grenade kit has no utility currently) and you could add more dps to utility kits (toolkit and elixir gun). Moving kits to the F bar would mean that core could take advantage of kit synergies and weapon swap without using up their utility slots. This would be a good thing even if kits weren't buffed in conjunction. The fact that core cannot take two kits without severely handicapping themselves is incredibly limiting and is awful for build design.

You can slot 5 Kits but only 3 of those Kits are on Utilities, so those are the Kits we are talking about. Mortar Kit is balanced as an elite skill and Med Kit is balanced as a heal skill. So what we are really discussing is three utility skill slots. If you remove one Kit you are not going to find much in the way of overall improvement. And unless you are removing Mortar as an elite and Med Kit as a health skill you are not limiting it down to two. Which means, we removed access to just one kit. I also really don't think you are going to get people on board with giving up Med Kit from the healing slot and Mortar from its elite slot, nor should they be. Being as how you are talking about freeing up utility skill slots Mortar and Med kits are not relevant to that goal.

I made that statement assuming Med Kit would be buffed to include more self sustain and some damage. Sorry for not making it clear. Med kit should include more self sustain. If you take a look at any elementalist water set, they have just as much utility if not more in addition to self sustain and damage. Water staff, for example, has 2 water fields, 1 ice field, an 8s CD blast finisher, condition removal, and a area heal that heals self as well. Even the auto attack, which is similar to med blaster, heals for around the same amount without requiring boons and also heals self. If Med Kit was changed to include more self sustain, say make bandage blast drop bandages that you can pick up and medblaster deals damage and heals self. Then it would be worth it to swap to Med Kit, pop some sustain and drop fields, then swap out to combo with the fields.

There would be no reason to assume that Med Kit would be buffed since it is balanced in regards to its healing abilities. Freeing up more utility slots has no true bearing on the effectiveness of heal skills. Since other health skills don't do damage there is also no logical reason to assume that Med Kit would gain the ability to do damage. Freeing up more utility slots does not give a logical reason for Med Kit to have more self-sustain. Everything you discuss in regards to the improvements to Med Kit does not logically follow from the removal of Kits as utility skills. Even if you removed the healing toolbelt abilities it is not logical to assume that all those abilities would be put into Med Kit. These assumptions can not simply be made.

[Tehologist.5841]

My opinion of what would improve engineer:

1) Implement weapon swap, give us staff that is melee condi damage two handed weapon with gap closer (short range teleport possibly?) and a lightning field. Mace for one handed power build to use with shield. This would allow an alternate weapon for scrapper so could finally make use of daze trait and run a condi build or allow rifle with hammer, both would make scrapper much better.

2) Move photon forge to weapon swap, will no longer proc static discharge or kinetic battery. I feel this is the biggest reason holosmith is so much stronger than any other engi build in pvp. It is also why they have to constantly nerf forge damage.

3) Move all the kit traits to their own trait line, make their existing traits for staff, mace and rifle. Firearms and explosives could potentially be merged into a single trait line.

I hope anet gives us a gadget elite finally and gives all classes another trait line instead of a new elite spec. I also don't like having to play with kits, as it takes away a utility slot from turret, gadget or elixir builds. I think a second weapon would suffice in a lot of cases especially for scrapper.

[Zex Anthon.8673]

@Tehologist.5841 said:My opinion of what would improve engineer:

1) Implement weapon swap, give us staff that is melee condi damage two handed weapon with gap closer (short range teleport possibly?) and a lightning field. Mace for one handed power build to use with shield. This would allow an alternate weapon for scrapper so could finally make use of daze trait and run a condi build or allow rifle with hammer, both would make scrapper much better.

With the way kits are implemented right now, adding a weapon swap would add more skills that kits need to be balanced against. Which means even weaker kits. If kits were limited down from 5 kits I could see it happening.

@Tehologist.5841 said:2) Move photon forge to weapon swap, will no longer proc static discharge or kinetic battery. I feel this is the biggest reason holosmith is so much stronger than any other engi build in pvp. It is also why they have to constantly nerf forge damage.

I agree, static discharge and kinetic battery are two major reasons why holosmith is performing so well. This is also a perfect example of the elite spec being nerfed because of a core mechanic. Removing the procs can still be done without moving PF. There could be 3 toolbelt skills that gain benefits from these traits, and 2 kit slots. This way PF wouldn't need to be nerfed even more if holosmith got access to a kit on their F bar.

@Tehologist.5841 said:3) Move all the kit traits to their own trait line, make their existing traits for staff, mace and rifle. Firearms and explosives could potentially be merged into a single trait line.

Typically utility families only have 1 trait that benefits them in some way, usually in the form of a cool down reduction. Then the class will also have many traits that benefit the profession mechanic scattered over all specializations. Engineer is strange in that traits that affect tool belts (the engineer profession mechanic) are all in the tools specialization, and kits have 7 traits scattered throughout the specializations like a profession mechanic. It seems like engineer was designed with the intention that kits would be the primary mechanic. The problem is that classifying them as utility skills means you have to choose between what is essentially the class mechanic, and utility skills that are supposed to provide additional tools that the build is missing.

@Tehologist.5841 said:I hope anet gives us a gadget elite finally and gives all classes another trait line instead of a new elite spec. I also don't like having to play with kits, as it takes away a utility slot from turret, gadget or elixir builds. I think a second weapon would suffice in a lot of cases especially for scrapper.

I too would like to see a gadget elite. Without a cool down, mortar kit is not a suitable skill for an elite. Across all professions there is usually one specialization that primarily governs the class mechanic (this goes all the way back the guild wars 1 too). For necros this is soul reaping governing shroud and spectral skills. For warriors this is discipline governing adrenaline and banners. For rangers this is beastmastery governing pet and shouts. The Engineer specialization is tools and it governs tool belt and gadgets. It would make sense that a gadget elite would replace mortar kit. All elite skills with the exception of mortar kit and revenant elites have CD. Even then revenant elites have energy to balance them. Mortar kit is the only elite skill that is unrestricted, and that is the reason why its not really an elite skill and is just another kit.

Moving kits to the F bar (med kit and mortar kit included) would free you up to use kits without taking away a utility slot (elite utility included). You would be able to take mortar kit without having it use up your elite slot, which could be supply drop, elixir x, or a gadget elite.

@Dace.8173 said:You can slot 5 Kits but only 3 of those Kits are on Utilities, so those are the Kits we are talking about. Mortar Kit is balanced as an elite skill and Med Kit is balanced as a heal skill. So what we are really discussing is three utility skill slots. If you remove one Kit you are not going to find much in the way of overall improvement. And unless you are removing Mortar as an elite and Med Kit as a health skill you are not limiting it down to two. Which means, we removed access to just one kit. I also really don't think you are going to get people on board with giving up Med Kit from the healing slot and Mortar from its elite slot, nor should they be. Being as how you are talking about freeing up utility skill slots Mortar and Med kits are not relevant to that goal.

Does mortar kit really feel like an elite skill to you? It has 1500 range and 3 useful fields, thats about as much as it has going for it. The only reason med kit is a healing skill right now is because it has bandage self as a tool belt. Without that it would not classify as a healing skill. Why wouldn't people be on board with moving med kit and elite mortar kit? Having the ability to run med kit with healing turret is good for support builds.

@Dace.8173 said:There would be no reason to assume that Med Kit would be buffed since it is balanced in regards to its healing abilities. Freeing up more utility slots has no true bearing on the effectiveness of heal skills. Since other health skills don't do damage there is also no logical reason to assume that Med Kit would gain the ability to do damage. Freeing up more utility slots does not give a logical reason for Med Kit to have more self-sustain. Everything you discuss in regards to the improvements to Med Kit does not logically follow from the removal of Kits as utility skills. Even if you removed the healing toolbelt abilities it is not logical to assume that all those abilities would be put into Med Kit. These assumptions can not simply be made.

Logically, why would med kit and mortar kit not be moved if kits were converted to a profession mechanic? Healing skills and elite skills may not be classified as utility skills by your definition, but they still exist as part of one of the utility family. Healing turret and supply drop are part of turrets, elixir h and elxir x are part of elixirs, A.E.D. is part of gadgets. Moving kits out of the utility bar means there would have to be replacement utilities, healing and elite included. As I said before, engineer should have 5 utility families each with 4 skills for each of the 5 specializations just like any other class. That way there are more traits and more types of utilities to create unique builds.

[Jaruselka.5943]

Make pistols great for once

[Dace.8173]

@Tehologist.5841 said:My opinion of what would improve engineer:

1) Implement weapon swap, give us staff that is melee condi damage two handed weapon with gap closer (short range teleport possibly?) and a lightning field. Mace for one handed power build to use with shield. This would allow an alternate weapon for scrapper so could finally make use of daze trait and run a condi build or allow rifle with hammer, both would make scrapper much better.

2) Move photon forge to weapon swap, will no longer proc static discharge or kinetic battery. I feel this is the biggest reason holosmith is so much stronger than any other engi build in pvp. It is also why they have to constantly nerf forge damage.

3) Move all the kit traits to their own trait line, make their existing traits for staff, mace and rifle. Firearms and explosives could potentially be merged into a single trait line.

I hope anet gives us a gadget elite finally and gives all classes another trait line instead of a new elite spec. I also don't like having to play with kits, as it takes away a utility slot from turret, gadget or elixir builds. I think a second weapon would suffice in a lot of cases especially for scrapper.

We are never going to get a weapon swap so long as we have Kits. They're the reason we have so few weapons and no weapon swap. Also, they are not going to give us another core weapon. Elite specs are the way of the future. Not giving Engineer one in a future expansion would mean Engineer players have less reason to buy the expansion, never mind the folks who would be upset that everyone but them got new toys.

@Zex Anthon.8673 said:Does mortar kit really feel like an elite skill to you? It has 1500 range and 3 useful fields, thats about as much as it has going for it. The only reason med kit is a healing skill right now is because it has bandage self as a tool belt. Without that it would not classify as a healing skill. Why wouldn't people be on board with moving med kit and elite mortar kit? Having the ability to run med kit with healing turret is good for support builds.

Doesn't matter what Mortar Kit feels like to me, as I'm not discussing things based on what it feels like to me. There is no reason to move an elite skill from its elite location to free up space for utilities. The same applies to Med Kit. Moving elite skills and med skills and nerfing Holosmith is a lot to ask of a playerbase. All in the name of improving just one set of skills. Bearing in mind that not everyone even thinks Kits should be a thing and that turrets need to be fixed. The less you disrupt the status quo the more likely you are to garner support. You're pretty much asking everyone else to make sacrifices to serve just a subset of players and so that the folks who like playing with Kits are happy. You're now saying they have to give up an elite skill, a healing skill, their healing F skill, their elite F skill, and a nerf to Holosmith. People who want Kits to be less lackluster would need to be willing to give up something on some level or this idea is only going to be met with unhappy fans. Keeping Med Kit and Mortar Kit where they are is a small price to pay, more so since you are talking about nerfing Holosmith, an Elite that a lot of people like.

Logically, why would med kit and mortar kit not be moved if kits were converted to a profession mechanic? Healing skills and elite skills may not be classified as utility skills by your definition, but they still exist as part of one of the utility family. Healing turret and supply drop are part of turrets, elixir h and elxir x are part of elixirs, A.E.D. is part of gadgets. Moving kits out of the utility bar means there would have to be replacement utilities, healing and elite included. As I said before, engineer should have 5 utility families each with 4 skills for each of the 5 specializations just like any other class. That way there are more traits and more types of utilities to create unique builds.

Well, because we are talking about utility skills. Still, it doesn't change the argument I made. Functionally people are giving up all of this stuff in order to lose access to using just one Kit. The offensive power level of our Kits was certainly not being hampered by the Med Kit or the Mortar Kit. Those aspects would be wrapped up balancing healing and balancing elite skills. Mortar Kit was allowed to be more powerful because it was an elite skill and elite skills were meant to have more power. Under your present set up folks are being asked to give up their F healing and elite skill, give up Med Kit as a healing skill, giving up Mortar Kit as an elite (which would lead to a powered down Mortar Kit), and a nerf to Holosmith all to serve the subset of players who happen to like Kits. There is very little gain for people who didn't care about Kits and weren't running them in the first place, but those folks are going to have to sacrifice some of Holosmith and two toolbelt skills anyway. The idea under these terms I do not see working.

[Opopanax.1803]

If they moved kits to F slots, then it would be much easier during new Elites to drop them for new F skills. This will never happen, though, because then the entire Tools trait line would have to be re-done, as well as every trait linked to toolbelt skills and kits.

My projection is that Engineer will continue to languish in core because of the original design choices costing too much time and resources to fix.

Tehologist, I do like your weapon swap as a mechanic addition for a specialty. In fact the Devs have even mentioned doing that for specialties... I just doubt they will retro do that for Scrapper.

[Iozeph.5617]

@Dace.8173 said:

@"Peutrifectus.4830" said:I don't think you understood what I was saying fully. Once deployed, they will stay deployed even when swapping our of turret kit. The detonate skill is the kit f# ability. Meaning that you can use a weapon or the other utilities whilst turrets are deployed. You would only need to be in the kit to either deploy, overcharge or use the turrets f# skill

I understood

exactly

what you said which is why I said

One of the

balance factors

of turrets was that if you wanted to use one you were

giving up a Utility slot

to do so and to keep it on the battlefield until it was destroyed or you detonated it. If you wanted

to run with all the turrets you were pretty much having to give up the use of other abilities

. The only way this would even remotely work is to nerf turrets even more than they already are now.

Your method is not balanced. You get all your turrets for the price of one Utility slot? C'mon.

The only way

your

method would work

is if

they nerfed turrets

further. Or they could force you to stay in kit mode in order to keep them deployed thus depriving you of other weapons, as I initially said. However, just popping into turret kit and dropping a bunch of turrets and then popping out is not a feasible idea.

I'm not in favour of making turrets into a kit, but let's all be honest with ourselves. They were semi-worth the loss of a slot each when they were ground targetable and sort of useful when we could choose when to overcharge. Making them into a kit now wouldn't be overpowered because right now they're just extremely rubbish bombs. If it weren't for the slight utility provided to support specs by experimental turrets I'd say delete them altogether. Anet - catering to the pvp whingebags as usual- went out of their way to make them all but useless in every mode.

Quibbling over turrets becoming overpowered with that sort of improvement is akin to saying a paraplegic wearing prosthetic limbs shouldn't be allowed to compete in a footrace at the Olympics. It comes off as petty because no matter how hard they try they're still going to lose.

[Josif.2015]

After 3 months of waiting, the balance patch has finally arrived. Here are my opinions on the changes:

• Gyros

By far the best and most needed change Scrapper got. Removing the gyro's AI and making them mobile wells that follow the Scrapper was the best decision ArenaNet has made and has overall made Scrapper a lot better. The days of gyro's path finding bugging out are finally over. Not only that, but the added in combo fields make the gyros even better. A great buff to the Scrapper's main mechanic.

• Flame Blast

While core engineer didn't get a lot of buffs, this is a great buff to engineer's flamethrower nonetheless. Making Flame Blast a ground targeted skill was a great change that core engineer needed. Spamming Flame Blast was very tedious as it was the only way to apply the stronger burn, but now that it's a ground target skill, the tediousness of applying the stronger burn is gone and gives core engineer more control in combat, something that I love a lot about the profession.

[Fennec.6208]

• Gyros

By far the best and most needed change Scrapper got. Removing the gyro's AI and making them mobile wells that follow the Scrapper was the best decision ArenaNet has made and has overall made Scrapper a lot better. The days of gyro's path finding bugging out are finally over. Not only that, but the added in combo fields make the gyros even better. A great buff to the Scrapper's main mechanic.

Except that changing the two that literally didn't have AI and are based on targeting (Bomb and Shredder) was absolutely idiotic and ruined the viability of ranged scrapper builds. My entire build was absolutely ruined because of this idiocy.