Guild Wars 2

Today I was having a philosophical session on the loo when I had an awesome brain wave: Mortar is a pretty worthless elite skill at the moment with around 0% of the total engineer population using it in their skill builds. However, what if Mortar became an elite TURRET that one could place and it would fire automatically on the engineers foes without player interaction?

Mortar Turret would definitely be more useful. Your idea is good they should do it. That said, supply crate would probably be 100% more useful regardless of what they do to mortar.

That sounds like a great idea, especially when you can’t use it in areas such as the Charr fractal, it would be a nice change. But I wouldn’t call it completely useless. The Mortar has a myriad of usefull skills, it just depends on how you use it. Use it max range and place it in the back. Personally, I lay it down, hit a couple of skills I need, then leave it and continue using my normal skills, going back when I need to.

I had the idea that they should just replace the darn thing- we already have a turret elite (supply crate), I was thinking along the lines of replacing the mortar with a jetpack or something.

Digikid.7230:

I had the idea that they should just replace the darn thing- we already have a turret elite (supply crate), I was thinking along the lines of replacing the mortar with a jetpack or something.

Yes, Engineers must be solidified in the one thing they do better than everyone else:
Cheat in jumping puzzles!
Thus, JETPACK!

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Digikid.7230:

I had the idea that they should just replace the darn thing- we already have a turret elite (supply crate), I was thinking along the lines of replacing the mortar with a jetpack or something.

Yes, Engineers must be solidified in the one thing they do better than everyone else:
Cheat in jumping puzzles!
Thus, JETPACK!

It has my vote

The mortar was a neat idea, but poorly implemented with GW2’s mobility heavy combat style. It needs to be completely reworked or replaced imo. A flying bomber drone, a jetpack, an IronMan-esque suit (not golem), an elite turret (read: cannon) that is heartier than our current turrets, etc.

I think the issue with mortar is :

If you buff the range, you make have some abuse in PvE.

If you transform it into a turret, we now have 2 turret elite.

I think they should UP the damage really high. So even with bad range, bad mobility and useless melee, it could still be useful. Imagine if it could hit for like 6-8k with the number 5. Would be awesome.

While I would defenitely increase the range, we can assume it’s never going to get beyond the max 1500 of other professions.
So even with the range is one of the most obvious issues, but even if you keep that as it is, I think the following needs to be done to make the Mortar better:

- the mortar takes no damage since the player still takes damage inside it. If left alone it despawns after 20 seconds for example.

- the heal and the aoe knockback do not have a min range, so the Mortar can protect itself. Will help a lot to use it longer under fire.

- the global cooldown on the skills is reduced to the same level as normal weapons (bombs is a good example, or grenades).
Mortar damage is low because of this cooldown, not because it doesn’t hit hard enough.

These changes for me are necessary to make the Mortar usable. Not saying it solves all issues, but at least you stand a fighting chance in it.

Engineers are “masters of mechanical mayhem” right? Well…..I vote for a Mech that we can summon and jump into that lasts for 10 seconds (or until it gets destroyed) and we can just tear kitten up. Arm it with a midi-gun, rockets…..yeah, a Mech would be “Elite”. ;-)

-Thor

Thorson.9218:

Engineers are “masters of mechanical mayhem” right? Well…..I vote for a Mech that we can summon and jump into that lasts for 10 seconds and we can just tear kitten up. Midi-gun, rockets…..yeah, a Mech would be “Elite”. ;-)

-Thor

I already got that…my Asura racial golem suit. And it sucks. So if they do a mech suit (an idea I actually like) it needs to be miles better than the Asura suit. I’m thinking a battle suit like the one Tony Stark made in the cave in the movie…big, clunky, covered in weapons. But steam powered.

Seras.5702:

Thorson.9218:

Engineers are “masters of mechanical mayhem” right? Well…..I vote for a Mech that we can summon and jump into that lasts for 10 seconds and we can just tear kitten up. Midi-gun, rockets…..yeah, a Mech would be “Elite”. ;-)

-Thor

I already got that…my Asura racial golem suit. And it sucks. So if they do a mech suit (an idea I actually like) it needs to be miles better than the Asura suit. I’m thinking a battle suit like the one Tony Stark made in the cave in the movie…big, clunky, covered in weapons. But steam powered.

Sorry, didn’t know Asura got a racial golem suit.

I do like your Tony Stark cave suit idea though. Would fit well in the overall mechanical environment. +1 !!!!

-Thor

Actually used it today to finish a event out in the Iron Marches. Specifically the one where 3 flame shamans are summoning something nasty. Kinda helped that none of the shamans bothered to start attacking me while i was spamming everything i got at them.

But yea, the mortar (and the rest of the turret and other deployed objects) suffer from the high mobility inherent in the combat mechanics.

i’ve used it a few times in fractals, in the beginning of grawl it was fun, and was really useful with the harpies. Kinda works with maw to take down the tentacles, but it gets targeted by maw.

Yeah, uncategorized fractal is the only real place the mortar is at all useful. Although I did play with it in a “defend the point” kind of event when I was doing world completion.

The funny thing about the mortar is that people flock to it trying to get on it when they see it placed. They see it as a toy, which it pretty much is. It’s also possible for someone to completely hijack your mortar with no mechanism with which you can recover control over it… I’m hoping they don’t spend time fixing that though and just make an elite that is useful.

gimmethegepgun.1284:

Digikid.7230:

I had the idea that they should just replace the darn thing- we already have a turret elite (supply crate), I was thinking along the lines of replacing the mortar with a jetpack or something.

Yes, Engineers must be solidified in the one thing they do better than everyone else:
Cheat in jumping puzzles!
Thus, JETPACK!

An Elite that does nothing damage wise, but gets us where no one else could go normally? I like this. You could probably reach the Son of Svanir boss of that Ice Fractal using it.

Seras.5702:

Thorson.9218:

Engineers are “masters of mechanical mayhem” right? Well…..I vote for a Mech that we can summon and jump into that lasts for 10 seconds and we can just tear kitten up. Midi-gun, rockets…..yeah, a Mech would be “Elite”. ;-)

-Thor

I already got that…my Asura racial golem suit. And it sucks. So if they do a mech suit (an idea I actually like) it needs to be miles better than the Asura suit. I’m thinking a battle suit like the one Tony Stark made in the cave in the movie…big, clunky, covered in weapons. But steam powered.

We already have a “transform” skill: Elixir X.

However, I agree. Rather than stealing elites from other classes that even they don’t ever use, it’d be awesome to have an Iron Man suit or something we can call our own.

Regardless, that still leaves the Mortar.

I know this has been suggested before but what about a Mortar Kit? It’s damage is already low, just change it into a kit and have my movement impaired by lets say 50%.
It makes more sense to siege with a siege kit rather than throwing 8 grenades a distance flown by an arrow, with my BARE HANDS.

Heh, backpack mortar. While it is active you can either move about as normal but have no attacks, or deploy legs (kinda like the sylvari taking root) and be able to pop off rounds from a tube on your back.

We really SHOULD have an elite turret. Seems like an obvious oversight that we don’t.

The mortar as a mannable turret is a fine idea but very poorly implemented. I don’t even find it useful in WvW, where you’d think it would excel. The range is too short and the need to target the ground you want to hit keeps its usefulness minimal. (You can tell Anet put little time or thought into it based on the fact that the +range trait for it didn’t work for 6 months and apparently nobody noticed or cared.)

I would give it a 2000 range and make it work more like the regular mortars — you don’t target ground, you just hold down the button to specify how far you want to shoot it, allowing it to be fired over obstacles into ground you can’t see.

Make the Mortar hit 25% harder and Conditions last 15% longer. Make it into a Mortar Launcher Kit and call it a day.

Slamz.5376:

We really SHOULD have an elite turret. Seems like an obvious oversight that we don’t.

The mortar as a mannable turret is a fine idea but very poorly implemented. I don’t even find it useful in WvW, where you’d think it would excel. The range is too short and the need to target the ground you want to hit keeps its usefulness minimal. (You can tell Anet put little time or thought into it based on the fact that the +range trait for it didn’t work for 6 months and apparently nobody noticed or cared.)

I would give it a 2000 range and make it work more like the regular mortars — you don’t target ground, you just hold down the button to specify how far you want to shoot it, allowing it to be fired over obstacles into ground you can’t see.

You mean like Supply drop?

We already have a turret and an Elixir elite. Our last should be a kit.

Turn it into a mobile 1400 range bazooka kit.

Kardiamond.6952:

You mean like Supply drop?

No. An elite turret. Not an elite skill that drops a couple of regular turrets.

Asking for a kit elite is asking for another borderline useless skill. If you want to know what a kit elite would look like, look at the Guardian elites, which are essentially kits. Few people use them because swapping out your toolbar for an “elite” set of skills that you can only use for 30 seconds every 3 minutes hasn’t proven to be very popular.

How is it different from a transform? Most Elite from other class are Transform.

And it doesn’t have to be a kit, it could also be a gadget or even something completly different.

Supply drop still use turrets traits, and adding another elite affected by turret would seems redundant for me.

Heh, one thing that mortar is actually useful for is cracking sonic periscopes. It deploys quickly, provide stability while operated, and the barrage seems to pack enough punch to level a periscope in a single shot.