Guild Wars 2

I’m sorry, what?
And the grenadier trait will just increase velocity and blast radius?

If this is the case, then I really hope the rework of the mortar into a kit fills that long range bombardment role.

Honestly, as far as the mortar is concerned, I don’t think 1500 will cut it. The projectiles are (currently) slow and painfully easy to predict and avoid, so if it’s going to be long range, it needs to be long enough that a player or mob doesn’t just close the distance in 2 seconds rendering the thing useless.

Weylin.6478:

I’m sorry, what?
And the grenadier trait will just increase velocity and blast radius?

If this is the case, then I really hope the rework of the mortar into a kit fills that long range bombardment role.

Honestly, as far as the mortar is concerned, I don’t think 1500 will cut it. The projectiles are (currently) slow and painfully easy to predict and avoid, so if it’s going to be long range, it needs to be long enough that a player or mob doesn’t just close the distance in 2 seconds rendering the thing useless.

Grenades are only really effective at closer ranges anyway. The only times they can be useful at 1500 range is if you’re world boss farming or if you’re in WvW. The grenades throw really slowly and are easy to avoid. It is currently a very stupid idea to take grenades and to not take Grenadier, but this change will allow you to take grenades if you want without it, you’ll just have slower grenades.

1500 range will probably be enough. The mortar is getting the huge rework of being able to move around with it, so it is essentially going to turn into the new long-range “field” kit. I just hope they remove the minimum distance for it, but even if they don’t, you could run a bomb/grenade and mortar build (or all three) for close, mid, and long range.

theyre good changes

shrapnel might be op lol

Grenade kit was a good kit. It was optimal at close range, but safe at long range, exactly as the devs intented melee vs range to work. All build into one kit. Mortar kit will likely be the same anyway with those slow projectiles.

But that means we’re trading a kit that we know worked, and worked for both power and condition builds (even hybrids) and took up a utility slot, to now using our elite slot and hopefully getting something that is just as good as the Grenades were.

They gutted the Grenade kit to make the Mortar more interesting. I don’t applaud that, that’s just lazy imo. “One of their elites is aweful. Lets just take something good they have that isnt an elite and make it an elite”.
Mortar kit could’ve been made just the way they are now without gimping Grenades.

This whole thing also doesn’t sit well when they say they give Guardians ranged because they think Guardians lacked range. But a profession that is even more limited in range has it’s range nerfed, and the spec is another melee range weapon. They did exactly what Engineers did not need.

Terrahero.9358:

Grenade kit was a good kit. It was optimal at close range, but safe at long range, exactly as the devs intented melee vs range to work. All build into one kit. Mortar kit will likely be the same anyway with those slow projectiles.

But that means we’re trading a kit that we know worked, and worked for both power and condition builds (even hybrids) and took up a utility slot, to now using our elite slot and hopefully getting something that is just as good as the Grenades were.

They gutted the Grenade kit to make the Mortar more interesting. I don’t applaud that, that’s just lazy imo. “One of their elites is aweful. Lets just take something good they have that isnt an elite and make it an elite”.
Mortar kit could’ve been made just the way they are now without gimping Grenades.

This whole thing also doesn’t sit well when they say they give Guardians ranged because they think Guardians lacked range. But a profession that is even more limited in range has it’s range nerfed, and the spec is another melee range weapon. They did exactly what Engineers did not need.

I’d have to disagree with this. The issue is that putting all those eggs into one basket makes everything else lackluster in comparison. Grenades were good in comparison to everything else, but they did have some fundamentally prevalent weaknesses (at least if you’re like me and run a ton of Fractals).

Projectile reflection completely screws the kit over. It’s the hard counter to the kit. (Not that I’m complaining about that, just a fact.) It relies on your target staying in one place and/or having predictable movement patterns. (There are a few bosses that teleport around randomly, and sometimes my own group has screwed me over with poor range tactics.)

As far as I recall, the only skill Grenade kit is losing is the 5 skill. Really, putting those on a dedicate kit to launch fields is better because grenades are unpredictable in their landing. Secondly, the shorter range with the ability to speed up the time of flight reduces the impact that unpredictable movement has on the kit. It’ll be MORE effective at longer range than now.

From what the devs have made clear is that they don’t want Grenades to be our ranged kit. They are building a kit that’s specific for ranged (mortar). We don’t know how that will act and interact with everything else so it’s too kitten early to judge its worth.

Lastly, I COMPLETELY disagree that Hammer wasn’t needed. The only real AE builds that Engineer has are reliant on kits. We lack any real melee cleave outside of them. That’s fine IF you want to run kits, but then that limits players who don’t want to run kits. Personally, I don’t mind running kits every once in awhile in PvE or any time I hop into WvW, but I’m excited for a new possible kit-less build. IDC if it’s not the optimal build. As long as it’s viable and looks cool, that’s good enough for me.

How would projectile reflection not kitten over Mortar kit? Because unless they do a surprisingly large overhaul and make it something completely unexpected, Mortar kit = Grenade kit.

We just have to now use our elite slot for it, hope it also gets 1500 range and works just as well for power and condition builds as it did before. Which i doubt since the devs were drooling over making it a good support weapon.

Also, for Engineer, Kits = Weapons. And for AoE we have a Rifle, Bombkit, Grenadekit, and a Flamethrower. All effective in close/melee range, all AoE centric. Hammer is absolutely not needed.
What Engineers really lacked was a reliable ranged weapon. Something that wasn’t designed in a way to be better in close range and could stand up to other professions using ranged weapons. That’s the one thing Engineers don’t have, and still won’t have.

If you want AoE but refuse to use any of the many weapons we already have for that, that’s your problem.

You’re reading things that don’t exist. The devs literally said that Mortar Kit will be long range with fields. Just because it has fields doesn’t mean that it’s support. One of the strongest Ele abilities is a field, but it does a ton of damage (comparable to 100b over the course of a fight).

And…according to…the wiki, and the game, kits are listed under utility, not weapons. And none of those kits listed have cleave. AE? Yes. Cleave? No.

At the end of the day, we don’t know (at least until Monday’s livestream) what’s coming with Mortar Kit.

I can only speak from a wvw perspective.

The only reason you’d want to use grenade kit at a longer distance would be in zerg fights. And this would be a ba doption in alot of cases due to retaliation.
Even though the mortal Shells will be reflectable you should now be able to keep shooting them without dying.

As alot of people have stated above, the grenade kit works best at mid range-melee, so this change won’t really be a nerf in terms of effectiveness at a range.
Some say the loss of poison fields will hurt the engineer alot, but they might compensate that in other ways.

Frankly, the shorter range simply just makes sense.
Engineers currently have one hell of a throwing arm.

In general, as in, outside of guild wars 2, in every video game ever and in real life, hand grenades are a mid range weapon and the fact that they were our artillery is kind of silly.

I don’t see the changes as a nerf at all, they’re a BUFF. Grenades will actually be viable without grenadier opening up some build options. The new grenadier trait increases the speed and impact area of grenades. Forget the range, I’d much rather have THAT.

In PvP and WvW Grenades will be much easier to hit players with. NPCs too, though it’s less of an issue since they don’t dodge. You can also hit more targets when the enemies are spread out. If an enemy is on the fringe of your target area, it’s more likely they’ll get hit by 2-3 of the grenades instead of one. Depending on how much faster the grenades fly, that might actually be a DPS boost while at range. (Shouldn’t matter much point-blank)

And for those situations where you need to artillery blast at long range, bam, Mortar. We’re losing nothing, except maybe the poison field, which might get added to something else, (Hint: if mortar is our ‘field kit’ now, then not all the mortar skills have fields, so if they’ll need to add more fields to make it the premier ‘field kit’)

Well, the tool kit has a cleave on its autoattack, for the most part. The third attack in the AA chain doesn’t cleave, but even ignoring that, autoattacking w/ toolkit still does solid damage to multiple targets at close range. IMO toolkit = our melee weapon. That’s why it has the magnet pull and gear shield, both of which can be used as gap closers. Although someone mentioned we didn’t have a melee cleave w/o using kits, we honestly don’t have very many good weapon skills in general without using kits.

One could also make the argument that p/p or p/s builds with piercing bullets trait give us a “sort of” cleave because the damage scales quite well with more targets packed together in a smaller area and applies bleeds/poison to any target hit by the projectiles (though not the explosions, if I remember correctly). Although I still consider pistol to be more of a mid-ranged weapon, since it doesn’t hit all that hard.

Originally, I was VERY upset when I heard about the changes, as losing that extra 600 range (and 3rd grenade, right?) will make defending and sieging towers in WvW that much more difficult, but I guess that’s what the mortar kit will be for. Since it sounds like it will be much easier to actually hit people with grenades at 300-900 range, I think I might end up liking the new setup better, we’ll just have to wait and see. The only problem I can foresee is in facing longbow rangers, especially when they are camped on a high point (which is already difficult enough when using a p/p build, slightly less so with p/s and rifle, but you get my drift).

Lastly, was getting rid of poison grenade really necessary? One of our only unblockable attacks, it doesn’t hit very hard but does enough damage (direct and condi) to be noticeable. Personally I run a p/p setup and often run E-gun, so I won’t have an issue applying poison, but I really like the fact that with the nade 5 skill, I have a damage-dealing option against guards and warriors who are blocking my attacks. Especially with all of their condi-cleanse abilities, I am constantly needing to reapply poison so that they can’t use their full healing abilities.

hotcarl.8621:

(and 3rd grenade, right?)
[snip]
Lastly, was getting rid of poison grenade really necessary?

3rd grenade is baseline now, no trait required. Major buff if you want to use grenades in a NON-greandier/explosives build.

Poison Grenade is still there, it just doesn’t make a field.

It’s a double edged sword since you don’t get the extra poison from putting projectiles through the field, but if you’re grenading with a melee group in dungeons or against bosses, you can keep poison grenades in your rotation without messing with more desireable fields like fire fields when might stacking is happening.

I read “grenade kit was gutted”. I’m now done with this thread.

Terrahero.9358:

Grenade kit was a good kit. It was optimal at close range, but safe at long range, exactly as the devs intented melee vs range to work. All build into one kit. Mortar kit will likely be the same anyway with those slow projectiles.

But that means we’re trading a kit that we know worked, and worked for both power and condition builds (even hybrids) and took up a utility slot, to now using our elite slot and hopefully getting something that is just as good as the Grenades were.

They gutted the Grenade kit to make the Mortar more interesting. I don’t applaud that, that’s just lazy imo. “One of their elites is aweful. Lets just take something good they have that isnt an elite and make it an elite”.
Mortar kit could’ve been made just the way they are now without gimping Grenades.

This whole thing also doesn’t sit well when they say they give Guardians ranged because they think Guardians lacked range. But a profession that is even more limited in range has it’s range nerfed, and the spec is another melee range weapon. They did exactly what Engineers did not need.

People have been begging for a melee weapon for the Engineer since before release.

While a lot of engineer kits are useful at close range, the toolkit and bomb kit are the only ones that are really balanced for melee (and the bomb kit is arguable) – flamethrower and rifle are close-in weapons but are not intended for standing there and taking it (hence why both have a knockback..).

In either case, one thing I’ve noticed with one of the popular but not exactly meta options (flamethrower and elixir gun) is that the weaponset you have underneath the kits is somewhat redundant. Sure, it’s good to have the additional cooldowns available, but having a melee option there that doesn’t require taking the third utility slot is certainly welcome.

When it comes to grenades specifically:

First, in terms of internal balance, the dominance of grenades needed to be broken. Realistically, that had to take a redesign of the profession, since simply taking grenades away would have been a big nerf to engineers, but redesigning the professions is effectively what they’re doing now.

Second, from a realism perspective, Grenadier was silly. You had grenadiers throwing not one, not two, but <em>three</em> grenades at a time, to a greater distance than almost all other small arms including magic, to a reasonable degree of accuracy. As Arioso said, that’s one heck of a throwing arm. 900 range brings it into line with other light throwing weapons.

Fade.1743:

And…according to…the wiki, and the game, kits are listed under utility, not weapons. And none of those kits listed have cleave. AE? Yes. Cleave? No.

Kits are weapon sets, that take up a utility slot. You appear to think they have to be one or the other, yet they are both.

Smack and Whack, both have cleave, and are attacks from a kit.

I think 900 range is fine but I hope the pick up the projectile speed and on that note the delay on bomb kit could use work too. Depending on how they rework conditions we will likely be getting the most out of this update over all.

Grenade kit will be a close range option, with Mortar Kit taking the long range spot. If mortar kits ends up decent I don’t think we’ll have any room to complain. If it sucks, well, that’s a different story. But, I imagine it’ll be decent, maybe potentially lower damage but considering the difficulty of landing 3 grenades at >900 range, well I doubt that the mortar kit won’t live up to the realistic expectations of what nades currently are.

Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365:

I can only speak from a wvw perspective.

The only reason you’d want to use grenade kit at a longer distance would be in zerg fights.

Pulling NPCs when solo capping camps. Hitting siege, NPCs, and players on top of walls without having to stand practically underneath them. Scragging yaks from a distance. I find many uses for grenades at 1500 range.

Grenades work now in pirate ship wvw meta. I’m not sure mortar will. 900 range nades will DEFINITELY NOT fill pirate ship meta role. At best it will be a downed finisher, or skirmish weapon. So I really hope they don’t make damage of mortar lackluster.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Grenades work now in pirate ship wvw meta. I’m not sure mortar will. 900 range nades will DEFINITELY NOT fill pirate ship meta role. At best it will be a downed finisher, or skirmish weapon. So I really hope they don’t make damage of mortar lackluster.

Seems like it should hit decently hard, though maybe not as hard as grenades. But it also has utility things built into it… it’s more like a multipurpose kit rather than something built for direct damage.

Plus it has a baby skyhammer. Grenade kit doesn’t have a baby skyhammer.