Guild Wars 2

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Grenade Kit

1. Grenade kit will throw three grenades by default.
2. Grenade kit skills will have a range of 900 by default.
3. Grenadier will increase the radius and velocity of all grenades.
4. There will be no way to increase the range of grenades through traits.
5. Grenade kit’s Poison Grenade will no longer be a field. Instead, it will explode out poison to all nearby foes.
6. For a full list of explosives traits, click HERE

Mortar Kit

1. Mortar will be listed as a kit and be reworked to be a full kit that you can swap in and out of.
2. Mortar skills will be reworked from what they are now.
3. Mortar will have 1,500 range (I think? Definitely long range)
4. Mortar skills will be focused on fields and blast finishers.
5. Mortar will have a trait in the explosives line: HERE

REMEMBER: NONE of these changes are final. These are ALL prototyped and are highly likely to see changes based on YOUR feedback.

What do you think of these changes?

Mortar idea is cool but i want to see skills in action. Range is strong and is good for an elite kit

Grenade is a huge nerf, from 1500 to 900 without poison field.

And probably now is balanced, there is more risk to use them with less range, more radius and more quickly. And the poison Field was really huge.

Honestly i think on engi They did a really interesting work, They changed A LoT, engi will be really different.

Probably engi will be the most different class after the update.

nades should be at least 1000. 1500 → 900 seems like a cruel joke.

Grenades if nerfed should not be reduced by that amount of range.

1000 – 1200 somewhere in there would be cool. 900 seems mean to be honest, and is awful if you wvw at all.

Grenade Kit
Removing the old Grenadier trait was a much-needed change; you couldn’t balance grenade kit with the old trait (effectively a 50% increase in damage) since grenade kit either had to be useless without the trait or too good with the trait.

1. Number of Projectiles I don’t know about 3 grenades by default. It contributes to high vulnerability stacking (more of a PvE thing) and particle effect spam. Less projectiles but making each one a little more potent might be better.
2. Range Reducing the range has a huge effect on the role of the skill. Currently it’s used to out-range enemies while staying safe and do area denial along with burst damage with hefty contribution from the toolbelt skill. 900 range will be shorter than rifle and pistol with the changes, which dismantles that role for grenade kit. If it’s being changed to more of an AoE damage and suppression weapon, then lowering in the range makes sense. But then it’s basically a ranged bomb kit. If the range is kept longer, the damage needs to be toned down a bit and turn it into more utility.
3. New Trait for Radius and Velocity Radius increase would be fine. Velocity increase would need to be small so that you can still avoid the projectiles.
4. No way to Increase Range Good. Traits which change the range of skills, especially long range skills, become problematic for balance.
5. Poison Grenade Change If I’m reading it right, this would make it work like all the other grenades. This really hurts the area denial role of grenade kit.

Bottom line is, what role should grenade kit have? Where does it fit in relation to bomb kit (high damage and area denial, but makes you vulnerable by being in melee) and normal weapon #1 skill (ranged, but not extremely powerful)? Right now it seems to act more like a long range bomb kit with slightly less damage.

The revamped engie is like ele 2.0. This is going to be hilariously OP with healing turret if it doesn’t change. I think having such an easy-access water field with blasts out the wazoo is going to be quickly exploited.

BlackBeard.2873:

The revamped engie is like ele 2.0. This is going to be hilariously OP with healing turret if it doesn’t change. I think having such an easy-access water field with blasts out the wazoo is going to be quickly exploited.

Yeah, but when we look at all the classes and changes I think that is called for considering what kind of burst potential we might be looking at lol

Exedore.6320:

Bottom line is, what role should grenade kit have?

I see it as high damage and vulnerability stacking. Also in PvP it’s damaging conditions.

900 range is not that good tbh. i run untraited pistol with my condi build and often have to switch to nades because i get outranged. medium range explosives is alright, but with a range that short you have to fight basically on point so they are only a mild increase on range compared to bombs. going from a max range weapon to a medium range weapon is a big nerf. not every engineer should be forced to take mortar if they want some ranged aoe.

not to mention it kittens them for wvw.

900 range doesn’t mean you have to fight on point. The problem I see with it though is there’s nothing wrong with 1500 nades as is. Landing 1500 nades on moving targets who can see them coming from that range require aim = skillful play. It’s one of the long ranged attacks that actually requires skill. So why take it away?

I wouldn’t be as bothered by a reduction to 1200 range on them.

People also already face tank nades.

The whole change rustled my jimmies.

Not only heal blasts, stealth blasts could become more of a thing on engies too…

The nade range nerf seems really annoying. One of the reasons to take them with the trait is for a good long range attack that also happens to be a skill shot. The skill shot aspect, predicting where a target will be, to me is the best tradeoff. The range nerf should get lessened imo.. but this is not knowing how mortar will be.

Mortar can be interesting. A mobile version that can be swapped to on the fly with no cooldown like a kit? Could actually complement a condi build well. Will have to take a wait and see approach before commenting more.

(As an aside.)Crate becoming an actual turret is really odd, wonder if it will be targeted and retain the stun, that was my main reason for taking it. If not then may use the other elites more often. Not to mention aoe moa…

SobeSoul.6910:

The problem I see with it though is there’s nothing wrong with 1500 nades as is.

The reason isn’t very clear unless you watched the stream. I just finished watching the engi part and it adds more context to the original post.

Mortar (the elite skill) is being re-designed and is now Mortar Kit (still an elite) and will be 1500 range. ANet wants Mortar Kit to be the long range area-effect weapon for engineer, with a secondary focus on combo fields. 1500 range grenades and poison grenade being a combo field overlaps that a lot, so Grenade Kit needs to change. The question is what should it be doing now.

Really 900 range is this a kittening joke?? 1200 would be reasonable to a point but 900 makes them useless.
Forcing people to go mortar cuz it has been useless since launch by nerfing grenade into the ground is one of the dumbest things ever.

You are 100% correct that Anet shouldn’t be socially engineering us engineers into something by taking away the utility of something else that took skill to use at its fullest range.

Lets face it, grenades were pretty broken. And on the flipside they will be better at short range.
With all the new toys we re getting you can’t really complain.

Pride.1734:

Lets face it, grenades were pretty broken. And on the flipside they will be better at short range.
With all the new toys we re getting you can’t really complain.

I don’t know buddy, a range nerf by 600 is pretty huge especially on the most common weapon (kit) used by the class.

I like it.

1500 grenade range doesn’t mean anything if it doesn’t hit. I spend most of my time in melee range because that is the only way I can hit anything.

runeblade.7514:

I like it.

1500 grenade range doesn’t mean anything if it doesn’t hit. I spend most of my time in melee range because that is the only way I can hit anything.

the thing is… some players can hit things further than 900 range away with grenades (myself included). it’s a big nerf if you could actually aim them. like a huge nerf.

choovanski.5462:

runeblade.7514:

I like it.

1500 grenade range doesn’t mean anything if it doesn’t hit. I spend most of my time in melee range because that is the only way I can hit anything.

the thing is… some players can hit things further than 900 range away with grenades (myself included). it’s a big nerf if you could actually aim them. like a huge nerf.

Don’t worry. Mortar will be OPAF and give you the range you want. Also, all the blast finishers you are getting make healing turret and mortar hilariously OP. Grenades were usually used within 900 range except in big teamfights, where having an engie is now better than having a staff ele. Weaknesses? Engineers don’t need no weaknesses.

Engie master class inc.

Guess we can’t really say much without knowing the exact changes they’re going to do.
Grenade kit is being changed to a mid-range kit, and poison grenades are going to be rebalanced if they’re removing the poison field.
Seems like it will keep its role of constant application of vulnerability – as long as you invest in the explosion tree, that is. But i can’t see it doing much else apart that.
I understand why they did it – they had to, if they wanted mortar’s to be useful in some way – but range was also one of the strong point of grenades. Sure, the third grenade now is baseline, but they always balanced the whole kit over that to start with.
With shrapnel becoming grandmaster, guess the choice will end up to either improve grenades’ mid range capabilities (shrapnel, the added cripple may work to keep enemies far enough) or to improve mortar’s long range ones.
I just hope they don’t end up with the same issue of the old grenade kit – being totally dependant of its related traits, ended up useless when not traited with them.
But in the end, seeing all the changes they’re doing, i guess we can just only wait, try them, and see for outselves.

1100 or 1000 would be much better than 900 imo. grenades having so much less range than the rifle feels real wrong, and gimps them for wvw. if mortar is 1500 the range difference is still big enough to justify it, without ruining nades for wvw. 900 range is just not enough to throw them off walls or do zerg v zerg with them. mortar will be popular sure, but having it as the only good range option for group play socks especially when nades are viable currently.

Pride.1734:

Lets face it, grenades were pretty broken. And on the flipside they will be better at short range.
With all the new toys we re getting you can’t really complain.

No they weren’t. From a wvw kind perspective: From all high range, damaging skills, Grenades are the hardest to use and have the most counterplay.

Why? Cause they are very slow in the air. Meaning any moving zerg will avoid them with some luck. Secondly the slow moving nature makes them a dream for guardians using field of reflection. Other faster projectiles can hit the guardian before he can use reflect. Thirdly, this is the most challenging 1200+ range skill set to use because you must keep moving your cursor and spam the skills, and anticipate enemy moment very well or you won’t land it simply. Last point: Retaliation. The huge nightmare of nades (wich won’t go away in update!!!!!!) is retaliation. Servers that like to do heavy blobbing, usually have tons of ultra tanky guardians, and guess what: they have permanent retaliation. 20-30 guardians (also buffing their Comrades) with retaliation. Every nade 15 singular strikes to people (if aimed well). 15*200 = 3000 damage ON YOU from just one lousy grenade. Another problem: While grenades are pretty fast to cast, their damage is relative low compared to ele/necro/barrage aoe burst. In wvw with full zerker build, except for two PVT (soldiers) rings: they go about 900 damage per nade (2700 total). Things like Lava font do Just as much, but take 3x lesser retaliation damage, and do area denial on top of it.

Meteor shower straight out wins because it has equal/better range (1200 range + 360 radius + meteor singular radius increase = 1600 range or more even). It also has better burst capability (3500-6000 per bolt). Meaning it’s way more effective against retaliation.

I really hope that Mortar almost completely takes over that role (with hopefully a bit less retaliation counter). Cause if it doesn’t, i won’t know. Also with grenade (sort of) becoming the Mortar elite, that means grenade is in a new position. Anet will have to be very creative to make it work between the bombs and mortar kit. Especially with bombs getting faster explosion trait, if that trait makes a big difference as I hope, Bombs might be new ‘melee heavy’ meta, meaning nade will have to have some special utility, burst capability or something else to it, to make it still appealing.

Also 900 range in wvw: meaningless. In pve it’s just enough to kite so no problems there. With new pirate ship meta (and the mentioned Elementalist advantages), 900 range nades are completely out of the question, they won’t serve a purpose at all. With slightly bigger explosions (new trait) and 1000 or 1200 range It might have some use in wvw if carefull used.

Shaving off 600 from the grenade range would be drastic change. I would like to hear from Arenanet developers why the grenade kit has been constant target of nerfs? It has been nerfed at least 4 times (auto attack damage, shrapnel grenade bleeds reduced, 40% reduction on poison grenade, increasing spread of the ‘nades especially underwater, making it happen often that only 1 out of 3 grenades hits from distance or zero if the enemy is kiting and grenade barrage is utterly useless underwater).

Currently engineers are the rarest profession in WvWvW. They server their role best in small scale roaming, but thieves continue be the most frequent profession in roaming. The planned changes are a massive buff to thief: allowing take a full enhanced Shadow Arts (SA) line with two offensive trait lines and getting very strong traits like panic strike + executioner. Massive burst, very long lasting poison + other condition pressure and amazing mobility + good healing, condition removal, ability to reset any fight with stealth + shadowstepping, all in one build.

In large scale fights grenades have been the best option combined with the bomb kit. Now bomb kit has been buffed update after update. It already has the strongest auto-attack in the game (1.25x damage multiplier), fire field, smoke field, launch + blast finisher (big old bomb). Allowing combo with the kit itself. Grenade kit lacks all this utility and has only advantages over bomb kit: range and ability to stack vulnerability (with steel packed powder trait). In all other ways it is inferior to the bomb kit.

Pirate ship is the current WvWvW meta. Lots of staff elementalist and necromancers blasting enemies from 1200 range, LB rangers pewpewing from 1500-2000 range. Reducing engi’s grenade kit makes it very subpar choice for such fights. LB ranger has superior single target damage, necromancer has much bigger AoE and burst and elementalist has both better burst, larger AoE, better DSP, better utility, better support, all in one build! Why would anybody pick grenade engineer over staff ele for a large group fight except pure fun?

I think the 1500 range of traited grenades should be retained. Make it master or grandmaster trait if needed. The extra range has very little effect on crammed maps (some pvp maps), but large effect on big open WvWvW maps. LB Rangers own engineer from 1500-2000 range, meaning engineer must close in to have any chances right now. Hitting mobile enemy from > 900 range with grenades is a skill shot. You need to take into consideration the grenade travel speed, estimate where enemy will be etc. If you don’t believe me, try 1 vs 1 fight against a mobile enemy and try to hit him with grenades at 1200-1500 range. Skill should be rewarded in this game and not punished.

I dislike the message Arenanet is sending to it’s players: We want you to play the game the way we want, use something else than grenades at long range. It is too early to know how the mortar will be. The current mortar skills are very weak, except for launch concussion barrage. The auto attack is so slow it won’t hit any mobile targets. Mortar #3 heals measly 370 with 15 s cool down!! Sigil of water is better than this.

I overall feel that the proposed engineer changes are a big mess right now. Arenanet is trying to change too much at same time. It is clearly more far from ready than most of the other professions. Many other professions got 3 traits merged into one trait, increasing chance for different builds. Engineers keep many of the existing traits as they are (less trait merging) and a lot of good/decent traits got completely deleted e.g. enhance performance, explosives master trait, wasn’t that bad combined with the medkit (allowing might stacking). The current proposal offers no traits to reduce the cooldown of the grenade nor bomb kit. I think this weakness should be addressed.

Removing the poison field from the grenade kit is bad, since the kit will then have zero fields and zero utility and if it’s long range is deleted, it becomes effectively a subpar kit. Currently the poison grenade was the only thing to do combo field with the grenade kit and the only way create a condition last on enemy zerg (all other conditions get removed instantly, in 1-2 seconds, because of the massive amount of shout + warhorn warriors + shout guardians + elementalists in the zerg).

Explosive Descent is very weak trait for master. It has only situational use (doing some jumping puzzles or BL maps in WvWvW). Very few players picked it when it was adept. Consider keeping it at adept level and make a master trait, which matters.

Shrapnel is quite weak for grandmaster, if it has only 15% trigger rate and I see it problematic. It doesn’t promote skilled play, just spamming skills as it is fully passive. Evasive Powder Keg can be very powerful in spvp.

Landing nades from 1500 isn’t exactly a measure of the engineer’s skill, it’s a reflection of the lack of skill from your target. 900 range covers like 90% of the grenade kits’ use.

Between the F5 skill, all of the reworks like not needing to trait for grenades to be useful, and mortar becoming a kit which has its own repercussions (weapon swaps with mortar now a thing, backpack regenerator working) I really don’t think the range on nades are the biggest talking point.

You can’t really judge these changes this early without seeing the exact changes being made to Grenade Kit and Mortar [Kit!]. Otherwise we’re all just blowing hot air for no reason. Also have no idea why this is in PvP forum and not Engineer Forum, where, you know, we’re already talking about these exact changes.

We lose 1500range grenades on a utility slot to get <TBD> range Mortar Kit on an elite Slot.

Plenty of people play their engi for the long-range grenades, and that is entirely removed. Can you imagine if Longbow for Rangers got nerfed to 900 range, and there was no longer a trait to increase the range?

And we have to hope that the Mortar kit will be designed in such a way that it is just as good as the Grenade kit is. Playing nice with both power, condition and hybrid builds.

So no, i dont like losing the Grenade kit because at least i know it was something good.

Roe.3679:

Landing nades from 1500 isn’t exactly a measure of the engineer’s skill, it’s a reflection of the lack of skill from your target. 900 range covers like 90% of the grenade kits’ use.

Well, if the 900 range covers 90% of the usage. Then why is the range being nerfed so hard? Isn’t more versatility better?

It isn’t like grenade kit is pushing other professions out of the meta, especially NOT in the WvWvW. Retaliation is a counter to grenade spam. Try throwing grenade barrage at an enemy zerg where all have retaliation on them and you will know (7k+ retaliation from one skill use).

The “balance” of this game is centered way too much on conquest game mode, which is not popular and has really horrible match making. Premade vs random seems common, at least to me and very few matches are even. So it is either you win with large margin or lose with large margin.

Why there are never any WvWvW related skill balance updates? It has much larger player base, even though the game mode has relatively low rewards. The developers have never answered the question or almost any other valid question is posed on the WvWvW sub forum.

Communication from Arenanet needs to improve a LOT.

choovanski.5462:

runeblade.7514:

I like it.

1500 grenade range doesn’t mean anything if it doesn’t hit. I spend most of my time in melee range because that is the only way I can hit anything.

the thing is… some players can hit things further than 900 range away with grenades (myself included). it’s a big nerf if you could actually aim them. like a huge nerf.

Aiming at moving players, that depends on luck mostly. Aiming at stationary players don’t take much skill.

Nade is actually a buff. Other than wvw situation, engi mostly uses grenade at around 400~600 range if they want to hit anything.

The new grenade will travel faster, has larger radius, and takes less traits to make it usable.

robertul.3679:

Really 900 range is this a kittening joke?? 1200 would be reasonable to a point but 900 makes them useless.
Forcing people to go mortar cuz it has been useless since launch by nerfing grenade into the ground is one of the dumbest things ever.

I get a slight feeling of deja vu here, thinking of ranger shortbow nerf…

Toxsa.2701:

Nade is actually a buff. Other than wvw situation, engi mostly uses grenade at around 400~600 range if they want to hit anything.

The new grenade will travel faster, has larger radius, and takes less traits to make it usable.

Well, if these are true, that is an unwise change. Bigger radius + faster travel time = less need to aim and anticipate the travel distance vs enemy movement and much more difficult to dodge them = less need for skill for the grenade kit user. Just spam the node. Same like the changes they are making to bomb kit (making it’s larger radius default, reducing offset time with short fuse) and giving many other professions more passively proccing effects.

Reducing the range to 900 is a terrible idea, keep them 1200 at least. This will only hurt people playing engineer in WvWvW. In PvP you aren’t going to be hitting anyone from 1500 range anyway unless they are completely oblivious.

I also see no reason to do away with the poison field. It has already been nerfed to a good place. If these changes go through the grenade kit it will have no fields to work with. One of the best aspects of GW2 is the ability to combine skills with fields which requires thought and timing. After these changes you will literally just spam all your grenades skills without thought.

Overall these changes seem like they are reducing the skill based play of engineer by making grenades have a larger radius and travel faster while punishing skilled players who could combo their fields and hit targets at longer distances through anticipation. Completely the wrong direction if you ask me.

won a nice 2v1 in edge yesterday, used the full 1500 range for it and other roaming. was also using 1500 range when defending a keep in ebg also. reducing the range to 900 would be a massive nerf and would remove many play styles. I would not have been able to pull off many of the things I was able to. 900 range is not useful, it’s too low and you get ‘out of range’ notifications often. any engineer who does wvw will not appreciate them being nerfed out of relevance.

I’m excited about the changes to Grenades and the Explosives line in general. On it’s own the 900 range isn’t so bad since ’nades are more accurate and harder to avoid within that range anyways.

I do wonder though if taking ‘nades will become married to taking Mortar kit to make up for the loss in 1200 range skills. Mortar will presumably become the only available option outside of Rifle’s 1 skill.

choovanski.5462:

won a nice 2v1 in edge yesterday, used the full 1500 range for it and other roaming. was also using 1500 range when defending a keep in ebg also. reducing the range to 900 would be a massive nerf and would remove many play styles. I would not have been able to pull off many of the things I was able to. 900 range is not useful, it’s too low and you get ‘out of range’ notifications often. any engineer who does wvw will not appreciate them being nerfed out of relevance.

You could have the mortar instead for roughly the same purpose.

Roe.3679:

choovanski.5462:

won a nice 2v1 in edge yesterday, used the full 1500 range for it and other roaming. was also using 1500 range when defending a keep in ebg also. reducing the range to 900 would be a massive nerf and would remove many play styles. I would not have been able to pull off many of the things I was able to. 900 range is not useful, it’s too low and you get ‘out of range’ notifications often. any engineer who does wvw will not appreciate them being nerfed out of relevance.

You could have the mortar instead for roughly the same purpose.

how good will mortar be for condi? will it have a minimum range? what about supply crate? mortar has been a joke since launch, i have no idea how good it will be. it might fire slow and do single high damage shells making is useless for condi or hybrid builds. plus you now have to give up supply crate. it’s a big trade off for a complete unknown.