FT#5 The useless smoke
sounds pretty kittening OP to me. Especially the last part about being feared, ignited, AND take 50% more damage
Aolbjorn 80 Engineer | Rank 29
Staunch Evon Supporter
Imho, they should rework the last skill into something alike the old juggernaut effect. Something like 6s protection, 6s stability, movement halved, 40s cooldown and you lose the effects if you switch the kit.
hahahahahahahah this would be wayy to funny! make the fear force them to run in circles! would love if if they added it
for PvE FT #5 is kinda of a waste. but for PvP/WvW where you need to stomp people, it comes very handy. you can always watch the enemy’s animations and blind them before they use their #2 down skill
Its okay for PVP stomps. Other than that.. lol
Not useless, use it when you get knocked down to prevent a group of enemies spiking you. Could definitely be better, but it has its niche.
I’m surprised they don’t retweak it for Weakness effect. Logic being, your target’s inhaled all of that smoke, and it’s chokin ’em out for a bit. Seems logical.
Other 80s: Any but Warrior
Wait, you guys really think a pbaoe blind on a weapon that requires close range is a bad thing? And it has no cast time so it can be used when stunned. It needs a slightly larger range, but otherwise, I like the skill. I use it a lot.
[TTBH] [HATE], Yak’s Bend(NA)
I’m surprised they don’t retweak it for Weakness effect. Logic being, your target’s inhaled all of that smoke, and it’s chokin ’em out for a bit. Seems logical.
I would disagree with FT5 inflicting weakness onto foes, because if you look at a lot of the Weakness-inflicting skills in the game, many have the intention of melee suppression (Staff Ele Earth 1, Elixir Gun Engi 1), or as an anti-kiting mechanic since Weakness reduces endurance regen (Thief Crippling Strike and Skale Venom, Warrior Hammer Fierce Blow and Mace Pulverise).
The Air Blast pushback mechanic is already sufficient control given its short cooldown in a class that features heavily into crowd control. I would propose an alternative.
Before I begin I would like to preface my post as to why I don’t take flamethrower. This is an analysis of the skills themselves which make me leery of slotting it in the first place.
- Flamethrower 1 is a 2.25 sec, 10 hit channeling skill, which is suicide against Retaliation. Burning is applied to the last pulse only, making it better as a Power kit rather than a hybrid power/condition damage kit.
- For a mid-close range kit (longest skill range is on Flame Blast and Napalm, at 600 range), there is no possibility of CC reduction or immunity, or failing that, a gap closer. It’s viable in PvE only because mobs will come to you. In WvW, you will be chasing people for a long time without some kind of pull, or immobilise from Rifle/Net Turret
- The Grandmaster trait Juggernaut encourages you to stay in the kit for might stacks, yet there is a combo field Fire in a skillset without inherent finishers.
- There is no range damage mitigation such as reliable projectile destruction or Protection. Before you say it, Air Blast is unequivocally better as an additional CC. Its short duration precludes its use against ranged pressure because most ranged pressure comes as a barrage of multiple small hits, rather than 1 devastating, easy to destroy projectile.
- The toolkit ability Incendiary Ammo procs only 3 times for a 60 second (!!!) cooldown.
Given this, Flamethrower 5 can be reworked in several ways:
- It can reduce ranged pressure through projectile destruction. This is my favoured way of reworking it. Making it like the Elementalist’s Air Scepter 5 will make FT engineers valuable contributors to dungeons, WvW, and may finally open up the door to bunkering with the flamethrower.
- It can be a condition removal. Flamethrower engineers have few methods of mitigating snares and roots. A PbAOE blind and soft-CC breaker opens up counters to Thieves, Warriors and Mesmers. It will also reduce ranged soft CC such as Ranger’s Barrage.
- It can be reworked into the gap closer the FT engineer requires. I would favour a short, CC immune period where the FT engineer moves at double speed; i.e. combining Stability (3 sec) with the Slick Shoes toolbelt Super Speed, leaving a trail of black smoke that blinds foes.
If you wanted to be boring, you could instead make it similar to Warrior’s GS Bladetrail, or Elementalist FGS Fiery Rush.
Marellune Malthias – 80 Elementalist
Devil’s Dominion [DD] – Yak’s Bend
I’m surprised they don’t retweak it for Weakness effect. Logic being, your target’s inhaled all of that smoke, and it’s chokin ’em out for a bit. Seems logical.
Actually I’d rather it creates a smoke field and blind for the duration of the field. THAT seems more appropriate. I’m letting out a ton of smoke, I should be able to escape using it.