Guild Wars 2

So bombs do “melee damage” (in that the do way more than ranged damage) since the are deployed in melee range.

Shouldn’t they do more than regular melee damage since they also have a delay? Otherwise (should the damage be kept the same), shouldn’t the delay be removed if it is to be treated like every other melee attack.

you can run away leaving bombs behind you.

you can also strafe in circle leaving bombs around the mobs.

isn’t the delay very helpful?

And it allows you more time to trigger combo effects.

Kite-bombers are very effective. Especially in WvW. And also very fun to play. I think I’ll go play mine now…

Just saying they should do more damage given that they have to be “timed”. I was surprised to find out that my ele does more melee damage.

They have a better area of effect than most melee attacks also.

I wish they caused blast combo finishers, even if it was every 3rd bomb

Taerik.3405:

I wish they caused blast combo finishers, even if it was every 3rd bomb

Then you could combo your bomb fields off your bombs, and that would be cheap.

Not cheap, the kit would have synergy

Bombs can be traited for better AoE. With the AoE target cap of 5, does that really matter? I mean, it’s pretty easy to herd monsters into your melee AoE to maximize targets.

If the philosophy for melee damage > ranged damage is based on the effort required (getting into melee range), then bombs should do more damage because of the additional effort requiring you to time them. I am basing this on the fact that my ele (with prec, vit, healing gear) does way more melee damage with their “kit” (lightning hammer = weapons don’t matter the same way it does for engg kits), than my engg in magic find gear.

Bombs actually do pretty competitive damage. The problem is just that grenades with the grenadier talent do even more. Until you get that talent bomb kit is the highest damage kit single target or aoe.

Seetoo.9316:

Bombs can be traited for better AoE. With the AoE target cap of 5, does that really matter? I mean, it’s pretty easy to herd monsters into your melee AoE to maximize targets.

If the philosophy for melee damage > ranged damage is based on the effort required (getting into melee range), then bombs should do more damage because of the additional effort requiring you to time them. I am basing this on the fact that my ele (with prec, vit, healing gear) does way more melee damage with their “kit” (lightning hammer = weapons don’t matter the same way it does for engg kits), than my engg in magic find gear.

I think it’s more risk than effort. Also, bombs actually allow you to hit outside melee range with the explosive radius + timer. I use them to just run around melee mobs (not even needing to face them) just dropping explosives for them to walk over until they die. It’s so easy it’s almost cruel.

Go into WvW, some thief decides he wants to mess with you, run away dropping bombs, laugh at thief. I get more xp running through the front lines dropping bombs than I ever did with nades. Outside of keeps of course.

Perhaps some other people just find the utility of bombs much more valuable than you think, and use bombs completely differently from the way you use them?

Bombs are amazing for wvwvw. Ever seen so many people fly in the air when you drop the big’ol’bomb in the middle of enemy zerg ? priceless… Bombs have its good uses, and with a guild group, you will see it shine.
Problems with grenades is, they are projectiles, and they will stop hitting the area you wanted them to hit, because one or two or perhaps the third grenade just hit that darn pet that was in front of you. Projectile weapons can be backfired against you and it can hurt if your not careful. A good engineer knows this and will use it against other engineers when they see the grenade Barrage skill being thrown.