Guild Wars 2

Bomb kit should be stronger, alot stronger. At the moment there is literally no pay off going into melee range with it when I can use grenade kit and do more damage with that from 1200-1500 range.

That being said, bomb kit is still my favourite kit.

I don’t know, bombs are already decent for some things. Sure, they’re probably not excellent for WvW but they’re probably our best PvE kit and pretty decent for tourneys.

It’s too bad the smoke bomb got nerfed a while back—I think the idea behind the mine kit originally was that it could completely deny an area. It was a little too strong, so it got changed to bomb kit, but kept the area denial by shutting down offense while pumping out damage.

Even now though, it’s still pretty decent. If you can bait people onto your bombs they’re gonna have a bad time

Bomb kit is our hardest hitting raw damage over time weapon. At least from the auto attack.

However it only has 2 raw abilities and one scatters mobs. Grenade Kit has the advantage of hitting 3 times per ability (meaning 3 vuln / 3 shots at shrapnel), and has 3 non-auto abilities that do very strong damage. BoB scatters mobs and trolls your group. I do feel Bomb Kit could hit a bit harder though, given the damage increase compared to grenade kit is minimal at best.

Kamahl.3621:

Bomb kit is our hardest hitting raw damage over time weapon. At least from the auto attack.

However it only has 2 raw abilities and one scatters mobs. Grenade Kit has the advantage of hitting 3 times per ability (meaning 3 vuln / 3 shots at shrapnel), and has 3 non-auto abilities that do very strong damage. BoB scatters mobs and trolls your group. I do feel Bomb Kit could hit a bit harder though, given the damage increase compared to grenade kit is minimal at best.

It’s just way too much of a hassle to do the damage with it, you will just end up on a suicide mission going in range with that if you are trying to deal damage with bomb kit (which also implies you are fairly glassy).

waka.9826:

It’s just way too much of a hassle to do the damage with it, you will just end up on a suicide mission going in range with that if you are trying to deal damage with bomb kit (which also implies you are fairly glassy).

Being in melee for brief moments is rarely an issue, except in particular situations – Lupicus (at least as an engineer), high-end fractal bosses, uh.. Kohler? I can’t think of a ton. But for most, my kitmaster engineer is in melee, using prybar and acid bomb and jump shot and etc. With larger bomb radii, it’s not too hard to deal solid damage and stay at a close, but not too close range. I won’t pretend I like bomb kit though – again, for the damage output, the lack of range on it is awful. I was hoping we’d get more grandmaster traits – one for each kit. One that makes bombs have range and instantly detonate upon landing, one that makes elixir gun do.. something creative, etcetera.

Kamahl.3621:

waka.9826:

It’s just way too much of a hassle to do the damage with it, you will just end up on a suicide mission going in range with that if you are trying to deal damage with bomb kit (which also implies you are fairly glassy).

Being in melee for brief moments is rarely an issue, except in particular situations – Lupicus (at least as an engineer), high-end fractal bosses, uh.. Kohler? I can’t think of a ton. But for most, my kitmaster engineer is in melee, using prybar and acid bomb and jump shot and etc. With larger bomb radii, it’s not too hard to deal solid damage and stay at a close, but not too close range. I won’t pretend I like bomb kit though – again, for the damage output, the lack of range on it is awful. I was hoping we’d get more grandmaster traits – one for each kit. One that makes bombs have range and instantly detonate upon landing, one that makes elixir gun do.. something creative, etcetera.

I wish bombs blew up faster and had a bigger range by default. And im speaking strictly pvp here btw guys

I really hate the bomb kit.

If Anet wanted to make the engineer more fun, one of the ways they could do it is by giving toolkit the good damage and making bombkit a more powerful blast and field creation kit rather than a really lame-feeling delayed melee kit.

But still I’m using the bombs for DPS because I dare make a build that isn’t nades.

The best part of the bomb kit is its tool belt skill Big ol’ Bomb because it’s quick cast damage, knockback and a blast finisher.

Otherwise, as the OP said, the Bomb Kit just doesn’t seem to do enough to justify that every attack is melee range, delayed and dodgable. I’m running an all kit build that includes the Bomb Kit as the 4th kit, and it’s definitely the least used option. Against moving targets it’s limited help, and it’s really only combo’ing with the blast finisher from Big ol Bomb that gets much use.

If the bombs could be placed and then detonated under user control, now that would be useful.

I feel bombkit is in a good place actually.

I use it as my “main” kit and except for Glue bomb’s ridiculously short duration I’m fine with the other abilities.
I think damage is in a good place actually, it really just boils down to placing the right bomb in the right situation.

When enemies move about to much, you just gotta know when to whip out the bombkit and when to stow it to engage/defend with other abilities.
And the risk vs reward thing with bombkit? It’s worth it imo.

As stated by other players, the toolbelt is great and the kit shines when you utilize the combo effects.

For the record, I use bombkit in sPvP, WvW and PvE.

I used the Bomb Kit as part of my main build since launch. I always felt it was missing something, but I didn’t think it was that terribly much. It works great in solo PvE and in hotjoin sPvP when people don’t move out of the bombs, but beyond that it has a lot of trouble against anything that isn’t just mindless melee. I thought switching it just to being unblockable would be good enough.

Now however, I don’t even think that would be enough of a boost to validate picking them up. I dropped them about a month ago now, and haven’t missed them at all. I can maintain Burning uptime in PvP combat just fine, which means the only thing I’m missing is Smoke Bomb and Concussive Bomb. Both of which just suffer from being terribly inaccurate. These would be okay being inaccurate, but they force a trait to even become reasonable accurate. Effectively by dropping Bombs I’ve lost very little and gained a trait slot.

Now it has a purpose in PvE, because it’s guaranteed to be accurate. Even without the AoE trait you can use it with the Shrapnel trait and it works pretty well and maxing the Bleed cap and maintaining constant Burn. But it is still lacking in other situations, and the only two bombs worth even a little damage in that incredibly optimal situation is Concussive (Confusion in PvE is still meh though) and Incendiary (because it provides Shrapnel bleed ticks potentially). Smoke is great against trash, but it’s trash. Glue is nearly worthless, because it’s worse then Glue Shot and Glue Shot isn’t even that great.

Honestly, I think the AoE Bomb trait should be innate and Bombs should always be unblockable. I think that is an excellent start to making the kit more viable. I also think Glue in general needs to be buffed so that it lasts 5 seconds and the Immobilize and Cripple durations need to be a base of 2s. Incendiary Bomb needs a 5s duration as well, and really now that I play without it I think Smoke Bomb was overnerfed, but I’m not sure what to do with it. The most controversial idea I have for Bomb Kit would probably be to make it so the auto-attack Bomb was no longer auto, and rather was a 10s cooldown Bomb named Shrapnel Bomb that sprinkled out a x3 Bleed to whomever it hit. Would it be overkill to do all of it? Probably, so I think one step at a time with the innate increased AoE radius and making them unblockable is a good start.

Basically, I love the Bomb Kit. I’ve always thought it was a little weak, but now that I play without it I don’t miss it at all. It needs some serious changes outside Solo PvE and niche uses in Dungeon PvE.

Hmm, I think I see the difference. I actually use bombkit as part of my tPvP power build. I can see how the kit would be much more frustrating as part of a condition build, having to land fire and concussion every time to be effective (and probably seeing them both quickly cleansed). As a power bomb user, I still use fire and concussion whenever I can, but my effectiveness doesn’t go down to zero when they don’t hit. Smoke bomb is still decent even after the nerf, and glue bomb is pretty lame but I’m starting to see how valuable it is for setting up BoB. Pretty much everyone in tournaments knows when to dodge BoB, so a lot of them are just staying in its radius until the last second. Enter well-timed 1 second immobilize

For condition builds, maybe she shrapnel trait could be changed to be equally effective for bombs and grenades? I like the unblockable idea as well.

Am I the only one who uses bomb kit almost exclusively in almost all instances (except fracs and pvp ofc)? :o I love it in pve mainly because unlike other classes where they have to face the mob to deal damage, we can deal the same amount of damage with our backs turned. In dungeons, I usually whip out my bomb kit, and run around willy-nilly dropping bombs left and right till the mobs are done. The only down side is, they’re mostly an aoe/group-centric weapon, and they don’t really shine as much vs single-targets (unlike nades which still do good damage vs single-target mobs).

I have to agree with the overnerf on stealth bomb. Before it used to be 5sec and 1pulse per sec providing 5 chances to miss. Now it’s 4sec and 2 sec/pulse so there’s only 2 chances. I think a good balance would be to increase its duration by 6 seconds, but retain the 2s/pulse thing. This way, it’ll fit better into the mob’s model of slow attacks but be more useful.

Im hoping a buff will happen to elixer-infused bombs to increase the healing ratio. Right now it’s a joke as a guard can heal so much more with just his passive F2 and regen =/ Make the healing attained a % of both healing and damage so we won’t gimp ourselves by choosing one over the other. Say… 60% healing 40% damage.

Bomb kit needs a blocking/charge ability really bad. I think if they added this charge that it would lay bombs all in a line kinda like those mine detonators in the military.

Yeah it affects condi builds differently then it affects power builds. Even then though, I think the Bomb kit needs better damage diversification for Power builds. The auto shouldn’t be the strongest option. Elixir Infused Bombs is a trait that I also think should simply be powered up and given a cooldown, so you it doesn’t feel like it forces you into always bombs. I’d still support a Shrapnel Bomb with a high direct dmg ratio in this case, but as I said before it’s something I doubt many people like as an idea. I kinda think only a select few of our kits should even have no cooldown #1 skills.

waka.9826:

Kamahl.3621:

Bomb kit is our hardest hitting raw damage over time weapon. At least from the auto attack.

However it only has 2 raw abilities and one scatters mobs. Grenade Kit has the advantage of hitting 3 times per ability (meaning 3 vuln / 3 shots at shrapnel), and has 3 non-auto abilities that do very strong damage. BoB scatters mobs and trolls your group. I do feel Bomb Kit could hit a bit harder though, given the damage increase compared to grenade kit is minimal at best.

It’s just way too much of a hassle to do the damage with it, you will just end up on a suicide mission going in range with that if you are trying to deal damage with bomb kit (which also implies you are fairly glassy).

That’s a bit of an odd assumption. In fact, most bomb builds I’ve encountered/used are not glassy at all. That tends to be an attribute found more commonly on grenade builds. I haven’t been doing a lot of tPvP lately, but I still see bombs fairly often in hotjoin.

Additionally, the fire bomb can be useful for getting might stacks (can do a self-combo with fire bomb → BoB), and the concussion bomb can stack some serious confusion, especially if used in conjunction with static shot and prybar (you can actually exceed mesmer levels of confusion with these three). Smoke bomb also comes in handy, it’s just a bit hard sometimes to tell exactly how handy it is because it’s not always obvious what you caused to miss.

The kit doesn’t really reach it’s full potential until you get some traits into though. But even if you aren’t traited for bombs at all, it’s still a nice source of raw damage that you can swap to in PvE (I use it all the time for the Jade Maw fractal).

Yamsandjams.3267:

waka.9826:

Kamahl.3621:

Bomb kit is our hardest hitting raw damage over time weapon. At least from the auto attack.

However it only has 2 raw abilities and one scatters mobs. Grenade Kit has the advantage of hitting 3 times per ability (meaning 3 vuln / 3 shots at shrapnel), and has 3 non-auto abilities that do very strong damage. BoB scatters mobs and trolls your group. I do feel Bomb Kit could hit a bit harder though, given the damage increase compared to grenade kit is minimal at best.

It’s just way too much of a hassle to do the damage with it, you will just end up on a suicide mission going in range with that if you are trying to deal damage with bomb kit (which also implies you are fairly glassy).

That’s a bit of an odd assumption. In fact, most bomb builds I’ve encountered/used are not glassy at all. That tends to be an attribute found more commonly on grenade builds. I haven’t been doing a lot of tPvP lately, but I still see bombs fairly often in hotjoin.

Additionally, the fire bomb can be useful for getting might stacks (can do a self-combo with fire bomb -> BoB), and the concussion bomb can stack some serious confusion, especially if used in conjunction with static shot and prybar (you can actually exceed mesmer levels of confusion with these three). Smoke bomb also comes in handy, it’s just a bit hard sometimes to tell exactly how handy it is because it’s not always obvious what you caused to miss.

The kit doesn’t really reach it’s full potential until you get some traits into though. But even if you aren’t traited for bombs at all, it’s still a nice source of raw damage that you can swap to in PvE (I use it all the time for the Jade Maw fractal).

Talking about strictly PVP here, No one is going to stand in concussion bomb or fire bomb. Not to mention bombs take kittening long to explode once your put them on the ground.

Even in paids people stand in Bombs all the time. They often do so to keep the control point. Evading/Blocking during it though, that’s a whole different issue altogether. It is correct though that any ranged opponent or melee with previous Bomb experience won’t stand in the Bomb cooldowns.

Of course, in hotjoin and WvW… there is a lot of Bomb fun to be had. No one seems to avoid them at all.