Guild Wars 2

I’d like to go down the Firearms tree instead of Explosives for a variety of reasons.

Can Juggernaut’d Flamethrower come anywhere near Grenadier’d Grenades in terms of overall effectiveness?
Range OBVIOUSLY goes to Grenades, but can the Might-stacking bring Flamethrower close for damage?
Could the rapid hits of Flamethrower #1 be utilized in some manner?
Does the Flamethrower’s ability to hit through obstacles give it any real advantage, or are Grenade explosions large enough to do the same thing?

Flamethrower is best used for it’s utility primarily. The knockback, the aoe blind, fire field, on demand burning proc from the toolbelt skill. Flame blast cant hit decently hard if full zerker. The damage isn’t complete garbage in a zerker build but it’s still far from grenades and even further still from bombs. With full might stacks and if you can maintain 100% burning uptime for the increased FT damage the damage would be passable if thats just your preferred play style but it will still be a lot less than using your other options in similar circumstance.

IMHO it’s in need of a damage boost to bring it closer in line with the above. With that said it is still a reliable conical aoe for when you need to chase something/tag which can be more reliable than grenades w/some moving targets and doesn’t require you to quite be as on-top of mobs/players as bombs.

The primary hit through obstacles usage would be in WvW on gates. You can hit players/rams through them with the flamethrower at a greater range(on the other side) than you could if you were dropping bombs on the opposite side of the gate and tossing ’nades on it. You can face hug the gate and use your knockback and aoe blind through it as well. So it can work well as a complimentary kit to the others.

I would say no because one of the most vocal proponents for FT since launch has been Phineas Poe, and it looks like he doesn’t use it much anymore. He might reply in this thread to explain more so I won’t try to speak for him.

FT is great for utility as Disastro mentioned. You can use it as essentially 4 solid utilities for the price of 1. AOE burst, low cd knockback, long fire field, AOE blind. If you want to trait for it and use in a more centralized role, it’s best for tagging in zergs (WvW or PvE really). Even though it has a low AOE target cap (3) the sheer amount of hits you get off per second still makes it best for tagging IMO.

If we’re talking purely PvE and you want a FT damage build, it’s not ideal but there’s nothing wrong with that. In PvP you don’t want to give anything up to your opponents, but in PvE it’s different. Let the min maxers tell you how much DPS you’re giving up and how much of a noob you are, but screw them. It’s a game and the point is to have fun. If you get bored of explosives, there’s nothing wrong with playing another build. So long as it more or less makes sense and your traits and utilities all work well together, I say go for it.

Flamethrower 1 has a 1.5 skill coefficient and takes 2.57 seconds (according to wiki). Grenade has a .33 skill coefficient for each 3 grenades, and takes .85 seconds. Assuming all 3 grenades hit, the grenades will hit 1.995 times harder than the flamethrower. As long as flamethrower’s skill coefficient remains that low, it will never compete with grenades in direct damage. You’d need to nearly double your power through might stacks for flamethrower to beat out grenades (with all 3 hitting).

I spend about 4 hours today in wvw really really trying to get hgh flamethrower to work and maybe its just me, but I got a killcount of zero with it (not including assists). I tried going glass cannon and bunker with it..nothing worked for me :/
As of right now its bets used as utility not as a main damage weapon.

Though its nice at destroying rams from behind walls

For WvW, i love using flamethrower and absolutely cannot stand the travel time on the grenades on the grenade kit for anything except taking siege near a defensible wall out. I have been using a mostly knights flamethrower/hgh build for about a month now and i have had a lot of success with using it for tagging and damage in small groups and large groups.

Like others have said, the flamethrower brings a lot of utility and the damage is not really the worst it could be. I use the same build with the same gear in PvE for the occasional fractal or dungeon and i have never gotten any complaints about what i use. I mainly stay in the flamethrower but switch to rifle for the immobilize and extra damage when my flamethrower 2 has a few seconds until i can use it again.

There are a few circumstances outside of WvW where the flamethrower hitting through objects can be useful, but its not really a major point since it rarely ever makes a big difference (or at least one that i have noticed).

Flamethrower isn’t all bad. I saw someone mention an HgH Flamethrower build, so I went about making one of my own. The result was I could easily maintain around 20 stacks of might, it was easier to land attacks on my opponents, and I had a great balance of survival and damage. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I am going to keep tweeking the build until I find the perfect set-up for it.

it’s decent and the best alternative if you’re tired of mashing 1.

PvE: The FT was already mediocre compared to bombs/grenades, but with the Modified Ammo buff it was left in the dust. I don’t use it anymore except for tagging at world events like Melandru and Gates of Arah. Very sad.

PvP: Air Blast is a good knockback for decap builds, but it’s not a viable damage option at all.

WvW: Death by retaliation.

I am by no means an expert in Engineer having just recently got mine to lvl 80 but I enjoy using FT. Damage wise I find its not as good as grenades but the utility use of it I find is really good.

Only thing to watch out for tho is don’t use it in EOTM until the patch drops to fix the retaliation issue, as you will end up doing a ton of damage to yourself using it. Even then I figure that you will die alot due to retal if your not careful enough. I tend to use mine in combination with grenades altho I dont know if this is right but doing grenade barrage followed by flame blast can give a good bit of damage initially.

But again im still learning the in’s and out’s of engineer but im finding the class really fun to play.

I am stil leveling with FT and bombs, but i am not 100% satisfied. I feel on 1vs1 (pve) the rifle is better as it has net and knockback and i think the #1 skill of rifle also outdamages FT.
Grenades however are no option for me. I find the grenade travel time to low for me to be able to hit something reliable with all grenades.

I like it on my engi. I’m not playing Fotm builds on principle so i like using kinda underpowered builds as long as i’m having fun and still can manage to have a decent success rate on it.

I’m currently using Wolfineer’s Rifle/FT HGH power build and love it. Sometimes i’m swapping FT for elixir gun (still power) for the added mobility and defense options. Once i’m confident enough in my engi i might start to play with both of them.

FT #1 spam can’t even come close to Rifle 1 spam in damage. So no it will not come close to grenades.

Question:
Why would you want them to come close?

Shouldn’t they, you know, as different kits, have a completely different function they fulfil? I see the problem with the Grenade Kit here which is an amazing all-around kit. It needs a specialization, something it truly excels at (area saturation could be one, but currently it’s not built enough for that) but it also needs to be limited into that function then.

Rifle allways seems to have a better skill.
the #3 skill has a nice bleed, and the #5 skill has some nice AoE. #4 skill is better then the FT’s #3 and FT #4 is a little situational. Ft skill #5 is nice though, but the #2 can be buggy at times.
The #1 skill gets better when there are 2-3 enemies though.

I now run p/s +ft+bk+elixir and having decent succes in pvp.

The Flamethrower is ok in open world but pretty much garbage in dungeons where it get’s serious, like high fotm. The main problems of the Flamethrower are:

• low dps
• skill 1 only hits 3 targets
• only a few vulnerability stacks
• juggernaut might stacks are wasted since you gain over 25 stacks might in a party
• forces you to stay on the weapon for might stacks

Compare it to grenades and bombs:

• more vulnerability
• hits 5 enemies (tagging up to 15 with ’nades … theory :P)
• more dps
• more blinds
• better fire field
• chill
• combo finisher
• overall just MUCH MUCH BETTER

In open world it may be funny, but I really hate FT engis in my party, since I know how much might he could grant the whole team by using bombs, how much vulnerability comes from grenades and how much utility the elixier gun grants.

Howere – swapping in for toolbelt seems ok… Or just for the style to burn those TA flowers down >:3

Just got a tip in another thread about fast aim with range option. That makes using grenades so much easier

sometimes i just want to target a boss, press 1, and alt tab. the FT is the best for that.

ellesee.8297:

sometimes i just want to target a boss, press 1, and alt tab. the FT is the best for that.

This is my reason for sometimes running a FT build. Nade spam is extremely annoying to execute, even when mousebound.

So lazyness warrants ~50% efficiency?

for a boss where i am able to stand in one spot and press 1 once to win, yes. if taking an extra 15 seconds to kill it upsets you then i’m sorry. find a guild of 100% pve tryhards. sometimes i just want to play my keyboard or guitar, or watch a tv show, or surf the web. after doing the same dungeons for the past year, i’ve earned the right to occasionally slack off!

pve is so easy anyway. it’s not like pvp where you can throw the game by using a lesser build. a dungeon run is always a guaranteed win.

Xyonon.3987:

So lazyness warrants ~50% efficiency?

Actually, no matter the build, laziness always results in less efficiency. This is true pretty much everywhere. Except naps. Laziness helps naps.

Sins.4782:

Flamethrower 1 has a 1.5 skill coefficient and takes 2.57 seconds (according to wiki). Grenade has a .33 skill coefficient for each 3 grenades, and takes .85 seconds. Assuming all 3 grenades hit, the grenades will hit 1.995 times harder than the flamethrower. As long as flamethrower’s skill coefficient remains that low, it will never compete with grenades in direct damage. You’d need to nearly double your power through might stacks for flamethrower to beat out grenades (with all 3 hitting).

Speaking solely about WvW, the bolded parts are the absolute key. Grenades rock when they land, and they are great for keeping you at range. But if you want to mix-it up in a keep fight or anywhere close quarters, the flamethrower is a far handier weapon and much more likely to connect. Grenades that fall behind someone do no damage.

Both will tag lots of people in a zerg fight, if that’s your goal. I tend to get more bags with the flamethrower, but I think that’s partly because I’m forced to be more aggressive, and aggressive gameplay leads to bags.

Again, I said in WvW. PvE is a different animal.

Was in wvw today and getting hit harder by the guardian staff than my ft could ever put out. plus it hits 5 ppl with farther range and has better team support :/ I got crit for 1.4k from one hit from it.

I’m enjoying flame thrower w/ Carrion amulet + juggernaut trait and toolkit. The decent power on carrion amulet + might stacks from juggernaut makes your FT #2 hit like a truck, make sure you get the initial hit in first before exploding it though for the extra damage. Additionally, I like to drop FT #4 and use throw wrench on the toolkit to proc that really nasty burn damage, Power wrench also packs a mean punch and I try and use it as often as possible.

I also like to grab Elixir gun with this build for the added utility and condi removal and I pick up the trait that improves damage on FT and Elixir Gun + the one that reduces cooldowns.

Was messing around and came up with this: Carrion amulet has great synergy with FT i think, like the poster above me stated.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqalspyanuSfF17IRIFF++gUk37K6xjp8kB-ToAgyCuIyRFkLITOSds6MEZuA

check out the stats with full might/ corruption stacks.

2200 condi dmg, 3500 attack with 24.5k hps. Really nice hybrid dmg. Decent defense. Only thing I feel it lacks is crit.

FT is fun and has great utility… if it just did a bit more dmg it would be an amazing kit, and I think our build diversity would flourish even more.

Nades are great. Bomb kit is awesome with the new explosion radius. Toolkit is great and box of nails is getting buffed, let’s hope they bring flamethrower in line as well

I would loooove to run zerker/ flamethrower.

Before Modified Ammo there was a 0/30/0/20/20 build that was somewhat competitive in PvE. Since the update it was left in the dust.

HGH is really tough, the DPS gained by might is lost on the time it takes to use/activate the elixirs while doing no damage. It does have its place in PvP/WvW but I’m not a fan.

As others have said, its good utility and FT2 hits pretty hard but don’t camp the kit. Bombs will get you much better results.

Modified Ammo did nothing to help build diversity but it did help us catch up to some other classes DPS wise.

Blood~

If you are looking for wvw I have found good success with this build. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIqya3zy3F1LJxoCdG0j6fX8KqQ+/oQusF-jECBYhBk8GkEBITtIasVhFRjVdDTxKy6YCpSBAz0I-w

Xyonon.3987:

So lazyness warrants ~50% efficiency?

Fun/enjoyment > Efficiency

Rynn.1324:

Xyonon.3987:

So lazyness warrants ~50% efficiency?

Fun/enjoyment > Efficiency

True dat. This is a game, not a job!

Depends. For me it is fun to be more efficient, to be most useful for my team. I want to be the “wow this engi rocks”-guy. FT just looks good, true that, sometimes its fun. But I don’t enjoy beeing weaker :P

mas.7401:

If you are looking for wvw I have found good success with this build. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIqya3zy3F1LJxoCdG0j6fX8KqQ+/oQusF-jECBYhBk8GkEBITtIasVhFRjVdDTxKy6YCpSBAz0I-w

I use allmost the same build

Can’t help myself… No not with that 1200 base range….

Sorry just continue been awake for a couple of days now and… impulse control waning.

Carry on discussion

Right now, no. FT can’t come close to grenades. IMHO the kit needs to apply a second condition to make it at least comparable in a condition build. I’m thinking Torment would be the most appropriate but that would open a can of worms in terms of balancing so no. That’s why I think FT needs a trait that will make it better suited in a power build…

What do you guys think of an explosive grandmaster trait that will enable the flame jet to do boon strip every 5 or 10 seconds and, depending on how many conditions are stripped, an AOE flame blast would go off and damage opponents? [basically a cross between a necro’s Spinal Shivers and our Detonate Flame Blast]

I forgot to mention…

The boon strip should in theory solve the FT’s retal problems.

Since the flame jet only hits three people, the boon strip shouldn’t be too OP. The flame blast resulting from the strip should still hit five people.

What they atleast should do is double the range of the #1 skill.

IMO, the FT shouldn’t do equivalent damage to grenade kit. FT has a lot of utility while grenades are generally purely offense-focused. I also think a lot of complaints about FT damage are in regards to single target damage. I don’t think the kit is intended to be used against a single target.

That said, I still agree that FT is weak, but I think its primary weakness is that its utility isn’t good enough to make up for the lower damage. #5 is decent, but could use either a bigger radius, a smoke field, or a shorter cd. #4 is generally pretty terrible (except for might stacking). It could be changed into a circle of flame for easier might stacking, but I’d rather see it completely replaced with a more utility-based skill. #2 hits hard, but is difficult to land against moving targets – perhaps it could apply a condition to improve the utility (e.g. cripple, weakness). Also the toolbelt is rather unimpressive (the cd reduction in the potential upcoming patch may be sufficient to make it better). Finally, the long channel on FT#1 doesn’t allow you to dodge much to protect yourself. I kind of think that the +200 toughness on Juggernaut isn’t enough to make up for this. Maybe it could be changed to +400? Or in addition to giving might every 3 seconds, it also gives 1s of regeneration every 3s? Something to make the player more durable if they’re going to be using FT#1 consistently.

Coenraad.8302:

What they atleast should do is double the range of the #1 skill.

I think increasing the width of the cone so you can still hit when turning. (I get a lot of misses if I got someone targeted)

A single grenade may also hit 5 targets while the FT 1 only hits 3 enemies. Then we have the “vulnerability on crit” thing where grenades also heavily outclass the FT. They both have a blind, but grenades have also chill + a superior toolbelt skill whereas the FT has a great fire field but a kittenty toolbelt skill.

Nope.

’Nades have better range, better potential impact damage, hit more targets per cast, and have amazing support passives (Shrapnel, Short Fuse, Steel-Packed Powder, Grenadier). All of this for just 30 points in Explosives and that is per grenade so you get three procs for every cast. Since most of the passives work with bombs as well, you can run both kits and have oodles of utility and damage.

FT just can’t compete with that, especially considering one of its stronger supporting traits (Deadly Mixture) requires 20 points in Alchemy and so comes at a significant opportunity cost. Speaking of opportunity costs, you give up useful skills like Hair Trigger or Rifled Barrels in order to maximize your potential FT damage output, something ‘nade or bomb users don’t worry about because they don’t depend heavily on Firearms traits for their main damage source.

Rather than comparing it to nade kit I’d compare it to bomb kit and it has far worse damage.

Even if FT #1 did same DPS as bomb kit #1 or grenade kit #1 I would still consider it inferior because it’s a channeled skill and because of hitting so many times it gets really hard countered by retal. Anything low range and channeled needs to hit super hard or have some other massive benefit. As it stands now it’s suicide to spray warriors with it at close range because every melee class in the game has far far far more damage and gap closers. And dodging will break channel.

And FT #2 skill is another “you gotta press this every X seconds to have more DPS” kitten skill, engineer is so full of.

This is my Flamethrower build
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joGxrtakWoM
Its a guide i did for my guildies who wanted to play with.

Some people find it very strong

FreekPalmer.2839:

This is my Flamethrower build
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joGxrtakWoM
Its a guide i did for my guildies who wanted to play with.

Thanks. That guide is well done and your channel looks promissing. Subscribed!