Guild Wars 2

What are people’s thoughts on these two traits? Personally I enjoy using them, especially the rocket, but I feel like both have a lot of room for improvement that could make them much more attractive to take.

Aim-Assisted Rocket: It would be nice if the speed of the rocket were increased to be the same as the Rocket toolbelt skill underwater, since it feels a bit slow right now at long range. Maybe increase the explosion radius from 120 to 180 as well. But a big improvement to the trait would be if it were treated as a toolbelt skill(since it’s fired from your character in the same way many other toolbelt skills are), which would allow it to proc SD when it activates, benefit from the cooldown reduction of Mechanized Deployment and give 2s of vigor from Optimized Activation when it’s fired. Might be a tad overpowered with those changes, and it would interfere with Kinetic Battery, but there would always be room to tweak it.

Takedown Round: The first thing is fixing Takedown Round’s tooltip- the damage listed right now is incorrect and it does around 80%-85% more damage than the tooltip shows(about the same damage as Aim-Assisted Rocket), which makes it seem like a worse trait than it really is. The next thing would be removing the >50% health threshold- it just makes no sense to put in such a major downside when it already has a 1 second delay on the explosion, giving enemies time to move out of its radius. Splitting the bomb into 3 weaker explosives would also help it a little, to let you get more Steel-Packed Powder and Shrapnel procs out of it.

Thoughts?

I like them both thematically. The slowness of the rocket lets you actually see it which I find way more enjoyable. You can also start fights off with autos that trigger it which seems to bait out dodges.

I think Takedown Round needs that limitation. If you use Elixir S and use the stealth to start the combo landing it isn’t a big issue.

I haven’t used Takedown Round so can’t really state an argumentated opinion. It seems to be aimed towards control builds as finisher damage (or doing extra AoE when cleaving bodies, even. Downed enemies count as being <50%? ).

I do like Aim-Assisted Rocket. I get that it’s passive damage and some people might complain for that, but at least this one is dodgeable! If only it had 1500 range so it wouldn’t wiff when Mortaring people off points =c

Aim-Assisted Rocket’s great. Not just for the damage – which is nice – but for its tracking ability. It tracks enemies through stealth.

Wondering where that annoying D/P thief went? Rocket says ‘that way!’.

I like Aim-assisted a lot, will be even better if they fix the explosive traits to work with it.
Takedown Round on the other hand makes no sense to me, why the health cap? Why Explosives in Tools? How does it just spawn inside your enemies (lore wise)?

Thematically, AA Rocket is awesome. The only thing standing in its way is the trait Shaped Charge, which is basically a free 5% damage modifier. The damage numbers from the AA rocket look good, but I doubt it increases your overall damage an extra 5%.

Both are really great. When you take this + static discharge + air/fire sigil, you have sooooo many procs that damages isn’t a problem anymore !

tyrellian.3706:

Aim-Assisted Rocket’s great. Not just for the damage – which is nice – but for its tracking ability. It tracks enemies through stealth.

Wondering where that annoying D/P thief went? Rocket says ‘that way!’.

its even funnier if you also have lock on

IgnisVulpesXI.3015:

I haven’t used Takedown Round so can’t really state an argumentated opinion. It seems to be aimed towards control builds as finisher damage (or doing extra AoE when cleaving bodies, even. Downed enemies count as being <50%? ).

Takedown Round couldn’t be further away from being a finisher. It only works above 50% hp of your target. And unless your target is standing still, which is really an exception in PvP, you have to root it to make this trait work. In PvE it does work quite well

Oh, it’s above not below. My bad !

Shows how much I’ve tried it (in fact I had to check it in the wiki to know what it did) x)

Medicarejunkie.6032:

Thematically, AA Rocket is awesome. The only thing standing in its way is the trait Shaped Charge, which is basically a free 5% damage modifier. The damage numbers from the AA rocket look good, but I doubt it increases your overall damage an extra 5%.

which make sense. the pve trait should do more damage in pve.
While the pvp trait provides more burst. And even extra vul, sharpshooter procs, etc.

Aim-assisted tracking stealth seems like a bug… does SD do that?

Takedown round I don’t get.
Theives get: 4s fury when they strike a foe below 90% health. And 10% crit damage buff, when they strike a foe above 50%…. Then, 2s of fury when they crit with fury active, AND +250 ferocity. then even can take the 10% damage vs foes below 50%…

and we get takedown round on a 10s cd.
What even is its point?

I would change how it works.
Remove the 50% hp threshold.
Remove the 1s delay.
Health threshold is a mechanic. so why can’t it work the other way?
5s internal CD. applys a charge on target. stacks up to 2 charges.
“when a foe’s hp is reduced to 25%, charges activate.”

Medicarejunkie.6032:

Thematically, AA Rocket is awesome. The only thing standing in its way is the trait Shaped Charge, which is basically a free 5% damage modifier. The damage numbers from the AA rocket look good, but I doubt it increases your overall damage an extra 5%.

This is what’s bothering me. It would be nice if someone could do the math and see which skill gives you more DPS. That being said I still prefer it for its AoE abilities and how it LOOKS with SD.

@Casia.4281 Any attack that is triggered before stealth that is ranged will follow them once they enter stealth. So, if you have AA Rocket and the trait Lock On and a Teef or Mes hits you and then enters stealth and that hit triggers AA Rocket then in theory it should follow them and also reveal them.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Medicarejunkie.6032:

Thematically, AA Rocket is awesome. The only thing standing in its way is the trait Shaped Charge, which is basically a free 5% damage modifier. The damage numbers from the AA rocket look good, but I doubt it increases your overall damage an extra 5%.

This is what’s bothering me. It would be nice if someone could do the math and see which skill gives you more DPS. That being said I still prefer it for its AoE abilities and how it LOOKS with SD.

@Casia.4281 Any attack that is triggered before stealth that is ranged will follow them once they enter stealth. So, if you have AA Rocket and the trait Lock On and a Teef or Mes hits you and then enters stealth and that hit triggers AA Rocket then in theory it should follow them and also reveal them.

hi

<math>

in 10 seconds, if you are autoing with shaped charge, you get an extra 45% of an autoattack in damage (using nades, starting from 0 vuln, 50% if vuln is applied). if you are not autoing, youre doing approximately 2x the dps of autoing, so shaped charge gives you approximately an extra grenade auto every 10 sec.

aim assisted rocket deals about 1.5x or 2x of an auto every 10 secs and is an extra hit (read: proc chance).

therefore aim assisted rocket is mo betta.

if you use bomb kit, current buggy skill queue functionality dictates the use of short fuse in order to get your blasts off in your fire field more reliably. in addition, if youre using bomb kit you prolly arent using ft and the fire field uptime is significant.

</math>

in addition, in pvp settings, aim assisted is always mo betta because condiblocker.

Some rudimentary testing came up with a coefficient of approximately 1.25 for AARocket with the 1.1x mod from being an explosion included (or that could be the base coefficient and the damage mod could be broken and not applying, we’d never know and devs don’t tell us coefficients anyway). So it’s an additional .125 cps (and a free short vuln stack, possibly proccing on-crit or on-hit effects as well). So in order for the 5% modifier, you’d need to be doing around 2.5 cps or higher.

2.5cps was entirely possible with PvE rotations and broken Grenadier, but it should be much harder to achieve now that it’s disabled and soon to be fixed. I haven’t done the numbers on optimal rotations though (mostly because testing and timing rotations is such a pain in the kitten, so I could be slightly off here though, but I don’t think 2.5cps will be possible for more than the first 10 or so seconds of a fight even with a perfect rotation because of cooldowns. That said, if you’re given an ice bow you should easily be above it and would benefit more from the 5% mod.

In PvP/WvW you will almost always get more damage out of AARocket than the 5% mod though.

Some tests I did on Takedown Round shortly after the core spec update seemed to suggest around a .95 coefficient without explosives, ~1.05 with, but I think there were a couple of flaws with those tests (and a relatively low sample size) and those numbers might be a little off.

Takedown Round seems to have a 2 second delay instead of 1 second, as it would explode right after net shot’s immobilize ended, which is a 2 second immobilize.

My testing confirms, 2s fuse on takedown round, not 1.
(short fuse trait does not effect this, if curious.)

I come up with a 1 power coeff, for takedown round.

1667 power, asc p/p(1000wpnstr). 729-820 on silverwaste dummies. (2140armor) no damage traits. =.99coef

1745 power, asc rifle(1150wpnstr). 865-1023 on dummies. no damage traits.
1.007coeff.

Pretty confident the coeff is 1.

It is an explosive, and does gain explosive traits appropriately.

Its damage is based on the weapon that fired the shot. if you shoot target with the rifle, then immediately swap to lets say toolkit, it will deal the damage of the “long-fused powder pack” with the 1150 weaponstrength of the rifle, NOT the 967 weapon str of the toolkit. A near 20% difference. do not forget this. Always try to apply it with rifle, not a kit or pistol. as it will be much weaker with them.

Aim assisted.
1745p. asc rifle 1150wpn str. 932-1066 vs 2140 armor. 1.065 coeff, with explosive powder presumably tied in. a .968 when divided by 1.1.
Ugly numbers. not trustworthy. need more.

Also weird. the tooltips. Aim assisted reads 851. Long-fused(takedown round) reads 465.
tooltips LIE… but thats usually weird. how much are they supposed to be doing?

AA pistol
1669 p, 1000 pistol, 823-911, vs 2140 arm. 1.1111 coef with explosive power.
1 without.
these make more sense.

I did throw out an outlier 1123 AA rifle top value, which I was not sure I didnt accidentally let excessive energy effect. if that 1123 was accurate, then that would shift the range to 932-1132, and give 1.1005 with explosive powder, and thus 1 coeff without.

suggesting Aim assisted power coeff is also 1.

While his numbers might be off a bit, sins and insane’s overall points are correct.

Aim assisted is 1 powercoeff per 10 seconds. +vul, +procs of all kinds. and, 1.1 powercoeff effectively vs any skill that doesnt get explosive powder. (the rest all should also get.)

grenade 1 is a 1 coeff, and 1 second attack. Thus 10 attacks in 10s, each getting .05coeff, from shaped charge. a total of .5 coeff. Spamming grenade 1 would be a dps loss with shaped charge. As stated, you need an AVERAGE coeff per second over 2 to get more dps out of the 5%.
Grenade barrage is .5×7/21seconds, and thus .167coeff/s. you are up to 1.167coef/s!

Honestly, it may not even be possible… And certainly.. 9/10 times aim assisted is more dps. And even if you do pull it off, anything that does have that high of a coeff will have a cooldown. making aim assisted more dps over time.

p.s.s. I did not test this, but the tooltip for takedown round says it attaches the bomb to the target. it does NOT drop a bomb at their feet they can just run away from, like bunker down.

now, with that in mind… add knockback to it. it would be amazing to troll with on downed players. trying to res a friend? oops, you had takedown round on you. kaboom

It drops a mine like bomb on thee ground where the target was at the time and explodes after few seconds. Just tested with a moving dummy.

Yes, it’s really easy to get away from. Now if it acted similar to Timed Charge it would be useful in PvP too.

Mork vom Ork.2598:

Yes, it’s really easy to get away from. Now if it acted similar to Timed Charge it would be useful in PvP too.

As long as you could still dodge it so there is some counterplay.

Taku.6352:

It drops a mine like bomb on thee ground where the target was at the time and explodes after few seconds. Just tested with a moving dummy.

ah lame. Especially when the mechanic for attaching the charge to the target is IN THE GAME, as Mork pointed out.

Should we /bug it?

Casia.4281:

ah lame. Especially when the mechanic for attaching the charge to the target is IN THE GAME, as Mork pointed out.

Should we /bug it?

The trait have two descriptions, one for the trait itself and one for the ability it uses, the ability states it’s current functionality so it’s probably just the trait description that is a unclear.

The trait states: Striking a foe above the health threshold places a delayed explosive charge on them.
It does not state that it attatches the charge.

The Ability states: Drop a delayed explosive pack at your foe’s location.
followed by some stats: 650 Damage, 5 targets, 1 second delay, 240 radius.

Hmm, so for the most part I’m not losing much DPS by taking AARocket? Sweet. Never been happier to be wrong. Plus it hits for decent AoE. Although, I was gonna keep it anyway because it looks cool. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for it to work with explosives traits.

if you use bomb kit, current buggy skill queue functionality dictates the use of short fuse in order to get your blasts off in your fire field more reliably

Oh thank god! I thought this was how bombs were meant to be now. So frustrating using them, keep canceling out my own attacks, utterly annoying! Is there a main thread pointing this problem out to developers. This needs to be fixed!

aha… general bug report link. The queuing experience really makes the engi feel cludgy and unfinished with me having to manually wait for the animations to complete and canceleing myself out half the time. Such a small think but when you’re used to the old way this really stands out.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Engineer-Bugs-Updated-Consolidated/page/2