Some may have seen in the Sept. feature patch that Mortar explosions now benefit from explosive traits, like the 10% damage trait, the vulnerability on hit, and chance of bleed on hit. This made me remember how far Mortar has to go before it becomes better in any situation over Supply Crate.
To explain, for those who aren’t acquainted with the skill – because unless you’ve played Engi, you probably haven’t seen it:
Mortar is an Engi elite that, more or less, spawns an immobile seige weapon that players can interact with to gain 5 new skills, and stability. Each shot has a 2 second global cooldown. It has a minimum range of about 400!
#1: Launch Mortar Shot: 180 Radius, single serving of 830 damage.
#2: Launch Caltrops Mortar: 240 Radius, 6 second Caltrops field that applies cripple, and bleeds every second.
#3: Launch Elixir: 240 Radius, 5 second healing field that heals 370 per second.
#4: Launch Ice Mortar: 240 Radius, 10 second Ice field that chills 2.5s every second.
#5: Launch Concussive Barrage: 360 Radius, 5 highly spread out shots, hits the same as the #1 skill, but disrupts targets with a 300 distance knockback. Typically each enemy in the radius gets hit once.
If this ability was useful anywhere, it should be PvP. We have small radius objectives where enemies are committed to standing on, and many sniping points in which people can fall back to.
Okay. Now that we’re all on the same page – it’s really clear that the Mortar has strengths and weaknesses. It’s strength is the #4, 10 second Ice Field. It’s base chill duration is nice, and the field is valuable to blast and leap.
Now we can look at what’s not okay with the Mortar.
- Complete lack of accounting for the player’s stats, and inability to crit. Static damage.
- Power, precision, ferocity, healing, all of these stats that can be specialized in are meaningless to the Mortar. Mortar just gets left in the dust by scaling.
- What dilemma this ends up creating is: “I can throw grenades as far, with a faster projectile, with a rate of fire 3-4 times faster, and do equal or better damage per lob, so why would I ever cast the #1 skill? I can pretty much do 3-4 times more damage while staying mobile!”
This trend stays pretty steady.
- Why throw down bleed stacking AoE when the Shrapnel Grenade does it better and faster?
- Why throw down the Elixir if it’s only going to heal allies 1850 if they stand in the entire thing? I’d rather take the time to sneeze on my enemies for 1850, or cast a fast Super Elixir from E-gun that’s better, lol.
- Ice Mortar is legit. I won’t knock it.
- The Concussive Barrage similarly lacks speed, accuracy, and damage, but the small disrupt (like Accellerant Packed Turrets) is along the lines how the Mortar should be.
My suggestions for the direction of the skill:
- First and foremost, allow Mortar abilities to crit, benefit from power, precision, healing, and ferocity. This might be impossible due to technical limitations on A.I – if so, change Mortar to an Environmental (bundle) category weapon that roots you.
- Improve the projectile speed of all mortars by 20%. It shouldn’t need to take 4 seconds of travel time (not exaggerating) to hit max range. 3.2 seconds is more reasonable.
- Tighten up the spread of the Concussion Barrage. Reduce the radius from 360 to 240. Add the ability for each of the 5 Mortars to remove one boon, like reserve Mines. This way, if cast upon enemies with stability, (during group stomps and revives) they will be barraged for more damage before getting knocked out of harm’s way.
- Change the ‘Elite Supplies’ trait. Nobody in their right mind would use a Master slot trait in order to increase the range of a Mortar from 1400 to 1500, and nothing else. Insanity. Suggestions: #1 Reduces the cooldown on Mortar abilities by 1 second (reduces global from 2 seconds to 1). #2: Deploy a 10 second duration reflective shield around the mortar when activated. This way, the Mortar could even be used defensively if you get jumped without a chance to pre-plan the mortar snipe.
- Reduce the dang particle effects on the Mortar 1 ability. It’s the same effect as a Big Ol’ Bomb explosion, for a piddly 830 damage.
What do you guys think about Mortar in this game? Is it better as an elite skill? Or should it remain as an RP skill?
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(edited by Chaith.8256)