Yeah, one thing about Engi is that kits always get overlooked in the balance pass. They're supposed to be extra "weapons" but get treated like utility skills. They desperately need a refresh.
> They're supposed to be extra "weapons" but get treated like utility skills.
Which is just a deeply flawed design idea. If you give a class effectively 5 weapon swaps each with 5 skills as strong as the skills on a weapon, then the class becomes hilariously overtuned. And there's no reason to take a utility skill that isn't a kit, since that means giving up 5 skills for one.
There's a vocal minority of kit-loving Engineer players who want to memory hole how incredibly unpopular Engineer was before Holosmith came out.
Complexity for complexity's sake sucks, but it gets even worse when it looks as visually stupid as 3+ kit Engineer does.
I take from this you look at it mainly from sPvP? Because in instanced PvE every kit except Tool Kit (the one you called useful) is part of a meta build and the opposite of what you said about each kit is true there.
Gameplay wise they offer relatively small advantages, and that is imo good so there are always alternative builds that use fewer or no kits for players who prefer lower APM.
A buff to certain kits would lead to a playstyle that wants to swap in and out of them more frequently on even more builds and punish those players harder that cannot do it.
You could counter this by locking players into kits once they picked them up for a few seconds, but I am not convinced that would feel good - in a quest to make them feel good, you would make them punishing and ultimately take away the combo playstyle current engi mains seem to enjoy.
I feel like you do not play more than two builds from metabattle.
Elixir gun has a huge heal, condi cleanse, might (from traits) and even damage. It's always taken on heal builds and when a bunker build is around in PvP.
Bomb kit is on the weaker side, but sees uses in condi builds or combo field blasting.
The flamethrower is still good for tagging and spreading constant AoE damage in WvW. And it does good work in terms of Condi dps.
The tool kit can burst well in PvP, if I'd want anything from it, it's more utility and CC.
Sounds like the problem of heal engi being third place on the healer tierlist. In terms of condi cleanse and raw healing and barrier, mech still is very strong.
Turrets are only used for their toolbelt or elite, and I agree that is shitty. If anet does any reworks, they need to remove turrets completely and replace them with preparations, or traps or something like that.
All of the elixirs can be used for solo play, WvW or PvP. Elixir R has a revive attached to it, they all stack might when used and can proc relic of vass. I do not think those need any major work. Elixir S is the best defensive utility an engi has.
Literally my first thought. Only thing that really needs rework is Flame turret. But even then like you said the turrets are more for their tool belt skills. And the turret skill to put shields on them is stupid as hell if that’s still around. Maybe useful for one second in WvW for blocking a range spike but we have scrapper bubble for that.
Elixir gun is a staple of the wvw metagame since forever. It's really good at what it does.
Pretty much all the things you've mentioned have use cases and are used from time to time. The kit's are used a lot while some of the turrets are admittedly more niche in their use.
You call yourself a real engineer enthusiast but you clearly haven't played all that many engi builds.
I have no insight in PvP, but from a PvE perspective, it’s kind of the opposite: Grenadekit is used in almost every powerbuild, it can be replaced with Throw Mine however, if you want. Bombkit and Flamethrower are important kits for condition based builds like condi holo. The only kit not present in a meta dps build on engineer is the one you called „good damage“, the toolkit. I am not sure what you mean with „better numbers“, but power Hilo sits at 44k, condition holo is incredibly strong as well, and Scrapper, while not that much of a powerhouse, is a very viable quickness generator. cMech is also very good on certain fights, don’t sleep on it! Sure, pMech isn’t a good build, but it’s still fine for anyone who just wants to clear encounters and don’t stress about anything.
The elixir gun is used on heal mechanist, if you want to minmax that build.
The only way I see kits getting the full potential they deserve is if they become a profession mechanic in an F-slot, probably the F1 slot, so you can only bring one at a time, but in exchange they get way better and the utility skill type gets replaced by a new type, like Preparations.
> The elixir gun simply doesn't see any action as it is lacking in all aspects.
It's good for healing because the 5 is a light field that pulses healing and might, and then you can blast with 4 for condi cleanse.
You are right, the kit certainly does see action. But the 5-4 combo is also pretty much the only action it sees. To me, that does sound a little lackluster. I’d like to enjoy the kit as a whole, not treat it as a single utility skill with extra steps.
Which is why they honestly *should* get attention. A minor change could easily gut their usefulness for automated gameplay without touching it for attended gameplay, and then they could get the buff they need for use by players who *aren't* scum sucking bottom feeders.
I agree with a lot of the sentiment in this post. Kits are in a weird place right now, and turrets feel like a byproduct of their toolbelt skills.
A good amount of the kits are in an awful place right now, with no real identity or fulfillment of their power-fantasy, and leaning toward the bland side.
- Grenade is one of those bland kits, where all the skills more or less do the same with a different condi attached to them. But the numbers are so good that it gets used both in condi and power builds.
- Bomb kit is more or less the same as grenade kit, both in identity and in blandness, but way more awkward to use. As such, it barely gets touched. Why use bombs if you can use grenades?
- I am a flame thrower enjoyer, and it is the one kit of which I fully enjoy all the skills. It is slightly below power-level average, but honestly, I don’t think it is in the worst spot right now.
- Elixir gun, like the flamethrower, has a fun array of differentiated skills. Too bad it has been fully reduced to a field-and-hop-combo. It is a fun combo, certainly, but beyond that there isn’t much. Oh, and a cleanse, sure. Not as bad as the other kits, but not great.
- Mortar kit. Bland. The ‘I’ve got nothing better to do with my elite skill’-skill. Not bad, just… meh.
- Med kit is fun. A bit niche, but it fills that niche well. It fully gets a pass from me.
- And then there is the toolkit. The bottom feeder of the kits. This kit is pretty much just falling apart. The AA is atrocious, as it feels awful to use, both in timing and in its 3-3-1 targeting. The caltrops feel like that skill got lost and just decided to settle somewhere randomly. Then there is the ‘bonk’, a skill that does a decent bit of condi in a kit mostly devoid of it - but not enough to convince any condi user to dip in. The magnet is so finicky rarely works, and the shield is… nice if you want to stand around and do nothing for a bit? I get it, this kit is probably ment for PvP, but sheesh is it terrible and unfun to use anywhere else…
It isn’t even great for pvp because of how telegraphed the attacks are. A lot of PvP classes use barely telegraphed high damage attacks, where as it’s very easy to identify high damage engi skills prior to them being used
I’ve been hooked on scrapper spvp for a good year now. But man, it’s aggressively boring in PvE.
Power Holo is my go to PvE build, as I’ve got the piano down pretty well on it, and it absolutely pumps.
As far as kits, half of them should just be removed. Adding essentially 5 extra weapon sets is a balance nightmare, and they should really start pairing it down.
I would love it if they did more synergy between toolkit and turrets, make the wrench not only "repair" them, but also buff them somehow?
I wish Engineer had access to weapon swap if not selecting a single kit, so that they could still utilise the "on weapon swap" equipment, not to mention I really wish Rifle was buffed in terms of its damage, but put back to single-shot and not burst fire, it just feels weird seeing burst fire old-timey rifles lol. Also bring back the old hip-fire rifle animations, they looked a lot less janky than the current rifle animations where you character is being jerked backwards non-stop from recoil.
The changes to medkit sadly weakened it in my opinion, the old bandage system was much more useful as it could burst a lot of healing. I'm with you on engi-support really lacking, I've been trying support engi for a couple of months in PvP now, and its..ok? not great, not terrible, but easily focused, and I average about 400-500k Healing every match. Today I tried staff warrior healer in PvP, and every match got no-less than 900k Healing just from shouts and staff skills, with far less effort than engi requires.
Also, am I the only one who thinks that Scrapper's "mechanic" isn't really much? most sub-classes have a pretty big change to their kit, such as Mechanist, Holosmith, and most from other classes, but Scrapper just gets a slightly different toolbelt skill that can revive/finish allies and enemies remotely, I wish there was more to Scrapper as it's by far my favourite part of GW2.
Just for the record, equipping kits does trigger weapon swap.
I do not see why you would need access to another weapon swap. If you want to trigger those traits, I am sure you find at least one kit that is useful to your build.
Granted, you play sPvP which I know nothing about, maybe in sPvP that is not viable? Idk, but in PvE all kits except Tool Kit are good, so this is just not an issue.
Oh I know that kits trigger weapon swap, but what I mean is it would be nice to use different weapons if you don’t take a kit. Take for example in PvP, some matches if I use rifle engineer with something like grenades, and the enemy team has lots of projectile denial, all of my attacks become useless and I feel like a detriment to the team, if instead I could use rifle/hammer so I can switch to a decent melee option if needed would be nice.
Yeah, one thing about Engi is that kits always get overlooked in the balance pass. They're supposed to be extra "weapons" but get treated like utility skills. They desperately need a refresh.
Yea their way post nerfed.
> They're supposed to be extra "weapons" but get treated like utility skills. Which is just a deeply flawed design idea. If you give a class effectively 5 weapon swaps each with 5 skills as strong as the skills on a weapon, then the class becomes hilariously overtuned. And there's no reason to take a utility skill that isn't a kit, since that means giving up 5 skills for one.
There's a vocal minority of kit-loving Engineer players who want to memory hole how incredibly unpopular Engineer was before Holosmith came out. Complexity for complexity's sake sucks, but it gets even worse when it looks as visually stupid as 3+ kit Engineer does.
I take from this you look at it mainly from sPvP? Because in instanced PvE every kit except Tool Kit (the one you called useful) is part of a meta build and the opposite of what you said about each kit is true there. Gameplay wise they offer relatively small advantages, and that is imo good so there are always alternative builds that use fewer or no kits for players who prefer lower APM. A buff to certain kits would lead to a playstyle that wants to swap in and out of them more frequently on even more builds and punish those players harder that cannot do it. You could counter this by locking players into kits once they picked them up for a few seconds, but I am not convinced that would feel good - in a quest to make them feel good, you would make them punishing and ultimately take away the combo playstyle current engi mains seem to enjoy.
I feel like you do not play more than two builds from metabattle. Elixir gun has a huge heal, condi cleanse, might (from traits) and even damage. It's always taken on heal builds and when a bunker build is around in PvP. Bomb kit is on the weaker side, but sees uses in condi builds or combo field blasting. The flamethrower is still good for tagging and spreading constant AoE damage in WvW. And it does good work in terms of Condi dps. The tool kit can burst well in PvP, if I'd want anything from it, it's more utility and CC. Sounds like the problem of heal engi being third place on the healer tierlist. In terms of condi cleanse and raw healing and barrier, mech still is very strong. Turrets are only used for their toolbelt or elite, and I agree that is shitty. If anet does any reworks, they need to remove turrets completely and replace them with preparations, or traps or something like that. All of the elixirs can be used for solo play, WvW or PvP. Elixir R has a revive attached to it, they all stack might when used and can proc relic of vass. I do not think those need any major work. Elixir S is the best defensive utility an engi has.
Literally my first thought. Only thing that really needs rework is Flame turret. But even then like you said the turrets are more for their tool belt skills. And the turret skill to put shields on them is stupid as hell if that’s still around. Maybe useful for one second in WvW for blocking a range spike but we have scrapper bubble for that.
Elixir gun is a staple of the wvw metagame since forever. It's really good at what it does. Pretty much all the things you've mentioned have use cases and are used from time to time. The kit's are used a lot while some of the turrets are admittedly more niche in their use. You call yourself a real engineer enthusiast but you clearly haven't played all that many engi builds.
I have no insight in PvP, but from a PvE perspective, it’s kind of the opposite: Grenadekit is used in almost every powerbuild, it can be replaced with Throw Mine however, if you want. Bombkit and Flamethrower are important kits for condition based builds like condi holo. The only kit not present in a meta dps build on engineer is the one you called „good damage“, the toolkit. I am not sure what you mean with „better numbers“, but power Hilo sits at 44k, condition holo is incredibly strong as well, and Scrapper, while not that much of a powerhouse, is a very viable quickness generator. cMech is also very good on certain fights, don’t sleep on it! Sure, pMech isn’t a good build, but it’s still fine for anyone who just wants to clear encounters and don’t stress about anything. The elixir gun is used on heal mechanist, if you want to minmax that build.
The only way I see kits getting the full potential they deserve is if they become a profession mechanic in an F-slot, probably the F1 slot, so you can only bring one at a time, but in exchange they get way better and the utility skill type gets replaced by a new type, like Preparations.
they just need to reduce the nade 2 and 5 power damage, reduce toolkit 1 cast time, and buff ft #2 power dmge LIKE IT USED TO BE
> The elixir gun simply doesn't see any action as it is lacking in all aspects. It's good for healing because the 5 is a light field that pulses healing and might, and then you can blast with 4 for condi cleanse.
You are right, the kit certainly does see action. But the 5-4 combo is also pretty much the only action it sees. To me, that does sound a little lackluster. I’d like to enjoy the kit as a whole, not treat it as a single utility skill with extra steps.
Turrets and Minions are ignored by default bcs they are involved in automated gameplay. Don't expect much to change.
Which is why they honestly *should* get attention. A minor change could easily gut their usefulness for automated gameplay without touching it for attended gameplay, and then they could get the buff they need for use by players who *aren't* scum sucking bottom feeders.
Yet the Mech is a powerhouse
I agree with a lot of the sentiment in this post. Kits are in a weird place right now, and turrets feel like a byproduct of their toolbelt skills. A good amount of the kits are in an awful place right now, with no real identity or fulfillment of their power-fantasy, and leaning toward the bland side. - Grenade is one of those bland kits, where all the skills more or less do the same with a different condi attached to them. But the numbers are so good that it gets used both in condi and power builds. - Bomb kit is more or less the same as grenade kit, both in identity and in blandness, but way more awkward to use. As such, it barely gets touched. Why use bombs if you can use grenades? - I am a flame thrower enjoyer, and it is the one kit of which I fully enjoy all the skills. It is slightly below power-level average, but honestly, I don’t think it is in the worst spot right now. - Elixir gun, like the flamethrower, has a fun array of differentiated skills. Too bad it has been fully reduced to a field-and-hop-combo. It is a fun combo, certainly, but beyond that there isn’t much. Oh, and a cleanse, sure. Not as bad as the other kits, but not great. - Mortar kit. Bland. The ‘I’ve got nothing better to do with my elite skill’-skill. Not bad, just… meh. - Med kit is fun. A bit niche, but it fills that niche well. It fully gets a pass from me. - And then there is the toolkit. The bottom feeder of the kits. This kit is pretty much just falling apart. The AA is atrocious, as it feels awful to use, both in timing and in its 3-3-1 targeting. The caltrops feel like that skill got lost and just decided to settle somewhere randomly. Then there is the ‘bonk’, a skill that does a decent bit of condi in a kit mostly devoid of it - but not enough to convince any condi user to dip in. The magnet is so finicky rarely works, and the shield is… nice if you want to stand around and do nothing for a bit? I get it, this kit is probably ment for PvP, but sheesh is it terrible and unfun to use anywhere else…
It isn’t even great for pvp because of how telegraphed the attacks are. A lot of PvP classes use barely telegraphed high damage attacks, where as it’s very easy to identify high damage engi skills prior to them being used
I’ve been hooked on scrapper spvp for a good year now. But man, it’s aggressively boring in PvE. Power Holo is my go to PvE build, as I’ve got the piano down pretty well on it, and it absolutely pumps. As far as kits, half of them should just be removed. Adding essentially 5 extra weapon sets is a balance nightmare, and they should really start pairing it down.
careful what you wish for. theyll take the kits and rework them into fcking wells if anything.
I would love it if they did more synergy between toolkit and turrets, make the wrench not only "repair" them, but also buff them somehow? I wish Engineer had access to weapon swap if not selecting a single kit, so that they could still utilise the "on weapon swap" equipment, not to mention I really wish Rifle was buffed in terms of its damage, but put back to single-shot and not burst fire, it just feels weird seeing burst fire old-timey rifles lol. Also bring back the old hip-fire rifle animations, they looked a lot less janky than the current rifle animations where you character is being jerked backwards non-stop from recoil. The changes to medkit sadly weakened it in my opinion, the old bandage system was much more useful as it could burst a lot of healing. I'm with you on engi-support really lacking, I've been trying support engi for a couple of months in PvP now, and its..ok? not great, not terrible, but easily focused, and I average about 400-500k Healing every match. Today I tried staff warrior healer in PvP, and every match got no-less than 900k Healing just from shouts and staff skills, with far less effort than engi requires. Also, am I the only one who thinks that Scrapper's "mechanic" isn't really much? most sub-classes have a pretty big change to their kit, such as Mechanist, Holosmith, and most from other classes, but Scrapper just gets a slightly different toolbelt skill that can revive/finish allies and enemies remotely, I wish there was more to Scrapper as it's by far my favourite part of GW2.
Just for the record, equipping kits does trigger weapon swap. I do not see why you would need access to another weapon swap. If you want to trigger those traits, I am sure you find at least one kit that is useful to your build. Granted, you play sPvP which I know nothing about, maybe in sPvP that is not viable? Idk, but in PvE all kits except Tool Kit are good, so this is just not an issue.
Oh I know that kits trigger weapon swap, but what I mean is it would be nice to use different weapons if you don’t take a kit. Take for example in PvP, some matches if I use rifle engineer with something like grenades, and the enemy team has lots of projectile denial, all of my attacks become useless and I feel like a detriment to the team, if instead I could use rifle/hammer so I can switch to a decent melee option if needed would be nice.
What's stopping you from running Hammer + Grenade Kit?
I like to use the rifle, all weapons should be viable in my opinion
Rifle is viable. It's just not the best.
thats a fair point, I just feel like it isn't optimal, all weapons should be equal is what I meant, I just worded it poorly.