Guild Wars 2

Just an idea as I was thinking about our D/D skills and fire grab seems out of place in the fire attunement full of aoe skills (well it’s kinda aoe) and also the fact that it’s really hard to aim. So my idea is to change it into a PBAoE like arcane brilliance.

Overheat (or some other cool name)
Creates a fiery blast at your location that does more damage for each enemy unit burning
Max units: 5
Scaling
1 unit: normal fire grab damage
5 units: max fire grab damage
Blast finisher (synergies with our fire field)
Radius about the same as our firefield
CD keep the same

What do you guys think? Maybe the damage would be OP but I think the skill flows with all the burning we can produce

Nah acctualy this fire grab is good but its bugged sometimes – imposible to hit enemy sometimes

I think all i would like to see changed:

1) 100% Crit for Burning Foes
2) Slight decrease in cool down

Firegrab definitely needs a fix. Sometimes the opponent is right in front of me and the firegrab hits nothing. I main ele for over a year now yet I have no idea how to predict what this skill is doing and how to use the mechanics in a way that it actually hits if you aim it correct.

The damage is very inconsistent as well. I have had times where it would do more damage to someone who isn’t burning than it some times does to people who are Burning.

Another Idea could be that it does a set amount of damage to those not burning and against people with Burning, It will remove the Burning and deal damage based o the overall potential of the burning – For example:

You have a 5 second Burn, It’s potential damage is 3,267
You use Fire Grab, this removes the Burning on the target
Deals say 50-75% of the Potential Burning as direct damage

Doesn’t make sense for me. First, this skill is more about single target, you can hit some other guys with it, but you probably won’t. Second, it has nice and distinctive mechanics and you propose to change it to another PBAoE with blast (ele doesn’t have enough blasts!). That would be very fun to play, PBAoE burning speed, then, PBAoE fire ring, then PBAoE “fire grab” with blast, than PBAoE water 3 with blast, then PBAoE earthquake with blast, then PBAoE arcane wave with blast (oh, at least it isn’t PBAoE now) – boring.
Grab is fine as it is, except bugger hitbox that need to be fixed someday.

Personally i don’t think it needs to be a blast finisher.

Another option could be to make it kind of like Flame Burst, It needs to have a little longer range. Single target with a small AoE around that target. Could even make it so that it deals more damage based on the number of people hit and then removes Burning from them and deals say 50% of that as upfront damage or something

I agree it’s fine as it is. D/D ele lacks hard to hit hard hitting abilities. (blew your mind:D)

I’m fairly certain the hit detection problem is not specifically linked to this skill, but rather ping related problems when you’re trying to hit someone who might seem to be right in front of you when in reality they’re slightly behind you or inside your hitbox. With enough experience it’s really not too hard to learn when you can or cant hit it. When roaming with friends on teamspeak it’s easy to notice what I’m talking about, when just running in a straight line there’s quite a bit of inconsistency in trying to share auras for example. When I ask my friend to run alongside me he says he is on his screen, whereas on mine he is a few feet ahead.

Since the feature patch however, I’ve been having a lot of trouble getting the burning scan to work on this skill. It fails to detect the target is burning and does half damage very often. Anyone else?

They could change it so that it works differently.

Like you throw a flaming dagger at your target which gives a way to dodge it. Give it a little bit bigger range and buff the damage a little. Make it soi that rather than damaging those in front, it damages those around the person you hit.

I constantly have problems with it. Some times it deals more damage to those not affected with Burning than it does to those with Burning. It seems to REALLY like doing solid damage to NPCs but lower armour (you would assume) classes like Ele and Thief and it will do LESS damage than it does to an NPC even with the target Burning and the NPC not having Burning.

Ok so you guys think blast is too much, fine by me that was just an afterthought. The real idea I was driving at was removing the buggy targeting system fire grab currently works on and making it fit the theme of aoe that fire attunement has atm. Hell keep the skill exactly the same but make it PBAoE (same radius/range as old fire grab), all this would do would then make it easier to hit, which I think would make this skill a 1000x better.

Arcturus.8109:

Doesn’t make sense for me. First, this skill is more about single target, you can hit some other guys with it, but you probably won’t. Second, it has nice and distinctive mechanics and you propose to change it to another PBAoE with blast (snip)

Actually all I have done is add a blast and make it PBAoE, the extra damage on burning foes is STILL there, but in an aoe format, which is more fitting with the rest of the skills. If blast is too much then remove it, but I still believe aoe is the right way to go

Cenzuo.6328:

Ok so you guys think blast is too much, fine by me that was just an afterthought. The real idea I was driving at was removing the buggy targeting system fire grab currently works on and making it fit the theme of aoe that fire attunement has atm. Hell keep the skill exactly the same but make it PBAoE (same radius/range as old fire grab), all this would do would then make it easier to hit, which I think would make this skill a 1000x better.

But why does it need to be 1000x better?

D/D can be braindead enough as is. You don’t have to aim anything… For the insane damage fire grab does, it should be hard to hit.

Gokil.2543:

But why does it need to be 1000x better?

D/D can be braindead enough as is. You don’t have to aim anything… For the insane damage fire grab does, it should be hard to hit.

Just curious, how Zerker with the exact right situation do you have to be in for this to do insane damage? Trying to up my build a little to actually make using this worthwhile. What Power and Ferosity would you be aiming for as a minimum for this not to be a totally useless and pointless skill to use?

I upped my Power to 1,500 and it didn’t really do that much i can hit Guards decently with it (2-2.5kish) but players no matter the class just shrug the damage off :/

Cenzuo.6328:

Arcturus.8109:

Doesn’t make sense for me. First, this skill is more about single target, you can hit some other guys with it, but you probably won’t. Second, it has nice and distinctive mechanics and you propose to change it to another PBAoE with blast (snip)

Actually all I have done is add a blast and make it PBAoE, the extra damage on burning foes is STILL there, but in an aoe format, which is more fitting with the rest of the skills. If blast is too much then remove it, but I still believe aoe is the right way to go

The problem I have with that is that it is too much like F4 minus the fire field. I like it as is, I just wish it would hit a little more reliably. I’ve actually learned to back off a little bit while it’s casting to ensure that the game knows the target is “in front” of me rather than standing directly on top of me which seems to help, but I’ve still had people clearly in the range not get hit by it.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Gokil.2543:

But why does it need to be 1000x better?

D/D can be braindead enough as is. You don’t have to aim anything… For the insane damage fire grab does, it should be hard to hit.

Just curious, how Zerker with the exact right situation do you have to be in for this to do insane damage? Trying to up my build a little to actually make using this worthwhile. What Power and Ferosity would you be aiming for as a minimum for this not to be a totally useless and pointless skill to use?

I upped my Power to 1,500 and it didn’t really do that much i can hit Guards decently with it (2-2.5kish) but players no matter the class just shrug the damage off :/

Insane damage is relative to what other skills we have. Fire grab has a 2.8 damage coefficient which is the second highest on any skill the elementalist has. (Churning has 3.25). For reference, eviscerate has a 3.0 coefficient, so fire grab does almost as much damage as eviscerate.

To answer your question: it only really starts hurting at around 1.8k power + 10 or more might. Ferocity isn’t that important anymore, but 175% is decent enough.

only thing firegrab needs is a fix or an increase in radius/range … whatever causes it to miss while standing in front of the enemy

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

The damage is very inconsistent as well. I have had times where it would do more damage to someone who isn’t burning than it some times does to people who are Burning.

This is easily explained by armor, protection, and traits. A target with no investment in armor, no protection, and no defensive traits will easily take more damage from a non-burning flame grab than a high armor target with protection and some kind of additional defensive characteristic would from a burning flame grab.

I’ve had a few problems with the thing misfiring as well, so they really just need to clean that up if possible. That’s the only thing I think needs fixing on it. I’ll sometimes have more of a problem with things like burning speed or ring of fire, which can apply their burning very inconsistently and make it hard to combo it into the flame grab (although the #2 is always there). Of course, that might just be because I suck a lot at D/D.

The cooldown is also quite long, but it can hit very hard depending on your spec (10k+ very possible).

I love firegrab as is, it’s a skillshot that has a lot of satisfaction tied to landing a nice big one.

Yamsandjams.3267:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

The damage is very inconsistent as well. I have had times where it would do more damage to someone who isn’t burning than it some times does to people who are Burning.

This is easily explained by armor, protection, and traits. A target with no investment in armor, no protection, and no defensive traits will easily take more damage from a non-burning flame grab than a high armor target with protection and some kind of additional defensive characteristic would from a burning flame grab.

I’ve had a few problems with the thing misfiring as well, so they really just need to clean that up if possible. That’s the only thing I think needs fixing on it. I’ll sometimes have more of a problem with things like burning speed or ring of fire, which can apply their burning very inconsistently and make it hard to combo it into the flame grab (although the #2 is always there). Of course, that might just be because I suck a lot at D/D.

The cooldown is also quite long, but it can hit very hard depending on your spec (10k+ very possible).

If that is the case, why would NPC guards and Champions take MORE damage from it than say an Ele? Surely an Ele can’t have as much toughness/Armour as them guys. Of course i know about specific situations where it would be less damage – Protection, Stone Heart and such but they are easy to spot.

To me it just seems the damage will be higher against NPCs than it is players, unless you go full zerker or something i guess. I mean having 1500-1700Power (depending on Might and such) and it still barely tickling people makes me want to use it even less.

I think making it a 100% crit if the target is Burning. Maybe increasing the range just a little or even making it actually a target skill, i have had times where the person has been so close to me that the skill goes off and they take no damage because it seems to not deal damage to anything that is pretty much right on top of you.

dank.3680:

I love firegrab as is, it’s a skillshot that has a lot of satisfaction tied to landing a nice big one.

Agreed. I’m happy with hard skill shots with big rewards.

If anything is in need of a rework, it’s some of the scepter skills like water 2… Probably fire 2 as well.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

If that is the case, why would NPC guards and Champions take MORE damage from it than say an Ele?

We don’t actually know what stats they have. Just because they’re champs doesn’t necessarily mean they take less damage, they can just have more health and higher damage. Furthermore, champs are often fought in groups, meaning they may have 20+ stacks of vulnerability on them to further increase the damage they take. There’s a lot of variables that can come into play. However, simple testing should show that the damage behaves in a consistent manner. I don’t think the ability is bugged in that respect (not that I’ve personally tested it).

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

I think making it a 100% crit if the target is Burning. Maybe increasing the range just a little or even making it actually a target skill, i have had times where the person has been so close to me that the skill goes off and they take no damage because it seems to not deal damage to anything that is pretty much right on top of you.

Giving it a 100% crit chance is too powerful. It’s also possibly a bad thing to add because they would have to then lower or remove the burning damage bonus in order to compensate for this, leading to overall less potential burst capability (i.e. using sigil of intelligence or arcane power).

I’m not sure what the actual AoE spread is like, but it seems to be a fairly narrow cone. If they widened it up (i.e. like engineer’s flamethrower air blast) then I imagine it would hit much more consistently.

If you do find you’re having issues with things being right on top of you, just try to step backwards while casting the ability. You could also possibly try to remain stationary during the casting of it, which can allow your character to auto-rotate at the target

Considering Phoenix generates an actual phoenix-shaped effect, I’ve always wondered why FG doesn’t manifest as a largish flame-hand that snags the enemy in it’s grip.
It’d still be a “telegraphed” move, for certain … and depending on how code would handle that specific visual effect, it might then hit more regularly.

Honestly I love how the skill feels right now. Its kinda like, I need to actually touch this person, but when I do, they asplode. The only thing this needs is better payoff or lower cooldown. It’s significantly harder to land than eviscerate/backstab, is conditional, and is on a cooldown thats 5-10 times longer. I don’t really think it needs more damage attatched, but autocrit for flaming targets is a great idea, as would be a cooldown buff to something like thirty seconds.