Guild Wars 2

As the title states, why does “Flamethrower” still not apply “burn” more consistently and reliably?

It doesn’t make sense to have to invest (unless you want to) into the second tier of explosive trait line for Incendiary Powder just to burn with a flamethrower. I understand if your not running FT kit and you want that extra condition damage, that’s fine.

Last hit of Flame Jet does apply burn, although how often does that land in a PvP, WvW scenario. Not so much of an issue in PvE, but I still think it’s strange to just tack it onto the last hit. When the last hit finally does manage to land and apply that burn, its only for a second. That’s not enough time to make use of the 10% bonus damage you get to burning targets (I believe that’s how it works, correct me if I’m wrong).
So if you want that extra 10% damage and a decent burn up time, you have to invest into Incendiary Powder.

Napalm is the only other skill that applies burn in the FT skill set, but I feel that’s still pretty lackluster as well. Of course you could use incendiary ammo, but again its relying on something outside of what a FT naturally does (IDK to me it just seems strange).

While I’m excited for the upcoming FT buffs, I still feel, IMO, there are some more things they can do to solidify FT use as a viable and practical kit. Still, I’m skeptical if those upcoming buffs will impact it enough to merit its use more. I’d have to see it in practice to make full judgment on that.

Anywho, that’s just my rant…

Insight, ideas, and opinions are welcomed about this awesome, yet under used (for obvious reasons) kit.

Hello frands! Vee Wee here, #1 Engi NA and world first rank 80!

Burning is one of the strongest conditions! If Flamethrower applied more burn on the auto attack, it would just be too strong! Flamethrower can already apply really heavy condi burst! Landing all your Incendiary Ammo hits applies a burn with ridiculous duration! Vee Wee suggested that Flame Jet have a reduced cast time and the burn proc is doubled at the end! This would make the burn slightly easier to apply and give permanent burning though with obvious counter play! But Anet never listens to Vee Wee!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

I don’t know if this would be possible, but could they just make it so that the flamethrower applied perhaps half a second of burning per tick of damage from flame jet? We could then get a 5 second burn, but only if we applied the whole darn thing which is nearly impossible with the tracking and the range of the flamethrower.

@TheLastNobody
I generally don’t have a problem tracking with the FT. However, I never target with it. I free-track with the mouse and that gives me better lead control. The FT also has a wide cone of attack. I could spray in-between two opponents and without either of them physically touching the flame jet, I’m still hitting them.

@JabLock
I never really considered the FT burn a primary benefit of the weapon. Indeed that 1 second goes by pretty fast and will not even tick if your opponent has runes of melandru equipped. However, where the engineer’s burn does shine is with the offhand pistol blowtorch skill. If you’re within 200 range, it’s 6s, plus 3-targets. Swapping between kit and pistols is pretty quick, so it shouldn’t be that much of a burden. Plus you can unload static shot and poison volley to add more pressure. When you’re done, you can go back to the FT. And that’s pretty much how I find is the best way to play the engineer too. We’re meant to swap between kits to maximize damage output.

I think though that if people want kits to be more powerful, Anet will have to compensate that by increasing the CD between kit swaps. Essentially making kits replace primary weapons instead of using them more like a utility.

don’t try to make too much sense of engi.

FT doesn’t apply burn, does power damage more than condi.

rifle is a melee weapon that fires from the hips.

rocket turrets special rocket / tool belt skill can take over 5 seconds to hit a target at max range due to an arch that makes the St. Louis Arch look tiny.

Tool kit does aoe damage on the first 2 hits, but ST on the last … why?

there is a lot of weird design, that doesn’t make much sense.