Guild Wars 2

Can i be viable with maining the flamethrower? i understand i wont be doing 30k hundred blades kind of damage……but can i still be useful?

Grenades that is all

Grenades, is the only viable build? i hear ;lots of people saving they love using flamethrower, and how much fun it is……..

Please dont start threads on whim. There are already so many threads discussing the same things. Look through them and you can find more than enough information.

You want to be useful but you never specify useful at what. Flamethrower are good in small groups as the second line infantry because of their toughness/armor and skills that avoid damage. They are also easier to use in comparison to pvp focused builds.

Are all the old threads up to date with all the newest patches and what not? Anywho i meant useful damage wise, in a support kind of way, maining the flame thrower, while throwing down some seige here n there.

Grenades are the best build for DPS. Flamethrowers don’t come close, but they let you be very tanky, and offer more utility.

Flamethrowers are in dire need of buffing and bug fixing. Kind of sad, they give traits to become a grenade and flamer build, but they pigeon-hole us into grenades for damage.

I’m making a flametank anyway, because they WILL be buffed one day. It’s pretty much required if Anet wants to improve this class. Also, using grenades hurts my fingers now. It’s a really sloppy set up. Yes, you will still be useful. Pack shield+pistol or rifle, flamethrower, bomb kit, whatever other utility skill you want and supply crate. The control you provide in PvE is awesome.

Eastcorn.5901:

Grenades are the best build for DPS. Flamethrowers don’t come close, but they let you be very tanky, and offer more utility.

I’ve had this conversation before and IMO proved the naysayers wrong. Flamethrower is more DPS when soloing than grenades, but involves getting a lot closer and does not bring the utility of the grenade kit or the vulnerability condition. But in terms of 1 on 1 comparison Flamethrower can come out ahead in damage if you know what you are doing.

The real issue is the kit is too difficult for many people to use because of targeting issues on flame jet and flame burst.

My chiming starts here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Making-the-Engineer-flamethrower-more-interesting-and-useful/305356

There is a mis-stated point from me. Crit indicator does not persist if the sequential hit is non-crit. That means some of those large numbers I thought were non-crit probably have a couple crits in them. Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that Flamethrower can be devastating.

We’ll, you’ve showed me that flamethrowers can deal a respectable amount of damage; perhaps all they really need then is bug fixes. Not really sure. What armor and accessory pieces do you run for that? I’m probably going to mix berserkers head and gloves, knight’s chest, soldiers legs and boots. All berserkers accessories. The burn on the last attack seems pretty meh, so I thought full power + tank would be better than investing in any condition damage. Although I’d rather run full soldiers, so I can use TANKCAT in WvW, but it seems like FT damage would take a huge hit.

Also, if the question is: from a purely DPS perspective, can flamethrower achieve equal damage to grenades, then you can’t say “IMO I proved the naysayers wrong”. It’s empirical, so regardless of opinions, you are either right or wrong. The person in that thread wants a full-on DPS flamer build. To prove your point to the fullest extent, you’d need to either show the math, or test damage done on a timescale with an engineer build optimized for grenade damage, and another optimized for flamethrower damage. Done on the same enemy. I’m pretty sure one popular member in the engineer subforum did do the math to show why grenades are the superior damage choice.

Though, I don’t think that question matters. Flamethrower skills and traits were meant for tanking, utility and being in the vanguard. Grenades were meant for long range, artillery-style damage. I just want tweaks so that front-line flamethrower build is viable as that sort of “charge in headstrong” offense type. So I guess that mostly revolves around Anet fixing those stupid FT bugs.

Flamethrower is decent if you’re planning to play like a tank. (High defense, Damage-over-time focused.)

Flamethrower with the right gear can be a decent condition-damage machine.

The reason why it can’t keep up with other kits at all is due to its skill2, Flame Blast, having a very awkward range and targeting – The napalm ball does not explode via collision, and will pierce through all units in its path, only explode at the end of the skill’s range, making it difficult to hit with the high-damage explosion.

If Flame Blast were more reliable, Flamethrower mains would be everywhere. :P

I currently run a flamethrower-oriented build, and feel that I do really good dps. Since the Juggernaut trait gives you 200 toughness and, with no extra boon-duration, five stacks of might it really feels as if you are that frontline soldier.
As for Flame Blast, it is really situational. If used at the right moment it can rip away about a fifth of the hp. Sadly it is mostly viable only at the beginning or at the end of a fight.

There are also a lot of bugs regarding the aiming of the Flamethrower. Flame Jet has a bug which causes it to miss often and Flame Blast fires right down the ground if you don’t have a target.

So yeah, there is a lot to be done for the flamethrower to reach its full potential, but dps-wise, I feel that I well get the amount needed.

My Flame thrower build is a pretty good build which is PVE focused, Generally, my primary damage is on Condition damage FIRST, then Toughness and precision…. I am using asura and wielding rifiles, remember that rifile stats bonus are lost once you change to FT, the tier 3 cultural rifile (however Fugly looking) makes up for Healing and vitality stats.

Tips:
Forget “deadly mixtures” trait, not very useful, I tend to run out of HP most of the time – Go with “Backpack Regenerator” which will allow you to live a tad longer. Your HGH will make up for the %15….. Esp when you can get your Might to stack around 11 ~13 …. Coupled with supply Crate if battle gets too tough… a good mix…
Do a bit of Maths when using upgrade items – Major Runes may look good, but it may not be that beneficial….. ^^ and there are cheaper more effective items ^^

Firearm trait – “precise sights” – “Naplam specialist”(no fireforge trigger pls) – “Juggernaut”
Invention trait – “Energized armour” (to balance for the lack of Pwr)
Alchemy – “FAE” – "Backpack Regenerator "(No deadly mixture) – “HGH”

ok, we all know grenades are heads and tails above everything else.

But that is not what OP asked about. he asked about the flamethrower.

And frankly, yes. as much as grenades are stronger then everything else, flamethrower is weaker.

FT is probably the lowest scaling weapon we have.
(I don’t think Sorrow understands FT1’s damage is aggrigate. 3200 damage over 2.5s. my grenades do 9000-10000 over 2.4s)

FT scaling is, 920 base kit damage average.
FT1 is: 1.5 skill coeff over 2.5s, 10 hits over 2.5s. 1s burn. (not 10 hits per 2.5s is 4 hits/s, not 5)
FT2 is: .75s skill coeff ball. 1.75 blast.
(^before deadly mixtures 15%)

It has a few secondary problems. Conal skills missing. FT1. missing if you move, or angle it wrong.
FT2’s projectile vanishing, impacting on walls, and dealing no damage. A severe problem in 1v1 pve. as npcs tend to get up in your face and make it miss. pvp, more reasonable. pve with other players much better.

Traits. Invariably 30 firearms, 30 alch. you need juggernaut. and probably want alch for deadly mixture. The problem being, alch has ALOT of really good traits. hgh, 409, 20% longer elixirs, deadly mixture, 20% shorter cd. If you are going 30 deep in alch, and cant get hgh, and 409, man that is lame. I would recommend, 409, and deadly I suppose. Since you get might with juggernaut.
Although, when you consider FT’s incredibly poor damage scaling, maybe you don’t want deadly mixtures… as you aren’t going FT for damage.

The KB/reflect is good. (not as good as a persistent reflect, but better then nothing.)
The toolbelt burn is terrible. Seriously, compare to wrench(100% projectilex2, .8 scalingx2, grenade barrage(6-12k damage every30s aoe.), big ol bomb.
Naplam is weak.
Smoke vent. doesnt have a smoke field. weakest blind availible to us. Although, it doesn’t interrupt channels. The one saving grace.

Pistols with coated bullets, does what FT wants to do, better. Strong aoe. Blind. confuse. burn. Has a root. This then can be paired with good kit. TK for pull, more confuse.
Frankly, MOST of our skills are heavily melee. bombs and grenades both deal much more melee aoe damage. Even rifle, has more melee aoe burst, and damage.

That is where you can use FT I guess though. backup. forget juggernaut.
Go pistols, and coated bullets. Use FT for napalm FF, and your pistols main. The kb/reflect on call. the blind… static is better.

In those screenshots I’ve posted I was in pow/tough/vit gear with knight trinkets. I’ve never tried the spec as a glass canon.

As for the math, no one ever factors in HGH and +40 seconds of might. That gives a base of 10 might stacks. If you look at all the screens I never fall under 15 stacks, rarely fall under 17, and sometimes I can spike to 25 stacks.

Also the guy arguing against my original posted did about 1.7k worth of damage, with one toss…so you are saying in 2.4 seconds a grenadier can throw 5 times, and with flight time land all five hits in under 2.4 seconds? His stats were as equal to mine as they could get, traits aside, we were using a soldiers amulet.

So if you are going to compare damage, make sure those numbers account for relatively equal stats.

Flame Jet is also 10 ticks or 5 ticks per second, that is 2 seconds not 2.5…so you may want to redo the math.

I’ve tried grenades, and would rather take HGH with might duration, plus juggernaut.

Strickly speaking about pve I’ve found pistol even with coated not so good. Anything really works 1vs1. For multiple opponents You’re gonna need grenades, bombs or FT imo.

No question about it grenades are most effective and deadliest choice we’ve regardless them being really annoying to use. Bombs seem to hit around same as 2 grenades as is rifle but hitting only 1 target unless mobs get pierced. FT seems to be around same as rifle/bombs and would be prolly better if you could hit with #2 on collision.

For FT I favour 30fire 30ach 10tools. Traits juggernaut, cd reduc for ft/eg + vulnerability on crits (not as good as grenade option but decent with high crit rate). From alchy most often I run with cd reduction, kit regen and 15% damage for ft/eg. From tools I swap speedy kits and kit refinement depending what im doing.

This allows extremely survivable build with quite high damage output as well as good support from EG and is not mind numbing as tossing grenades over and over. This build is also nice for swapping to rifle or pistol build with just traiting, no need for trait reset.

Even more versatile would be prolly 10/30/0/20/10 or 0/30/0/20/20 then you could use bombs or take burn on crits and with tools you could have speedy kits/kit refinement/static discharge.

If anet only would up pistol & ft damage along fixing obvious bugs we could see more people using other than grenades.

Sorrow.7452:

In those screenshots I’ve posted I was in pow/tough/vit gear with knight trinkets. I’ve never tried the spec as a glass canon.

As for the math, no one ever factors in HGH and +40 seconds of might. That gives a base of 10 might stacks. If you look at all the screens I never fall under 15 stacks, rarely fall under 17, and sometimes I can spike to 25 stacks.

Also the guy arguing against my original posted did about 1.7k worth of damage, with one toss…so you are saying in 2.4 seconds a grenadier can throw 5 times, and with flight time land all five hits in under 2.4 seconds? His stats were as equal to mine as they could get, traits aside, we were using a soldiers amulet.

So if you are going to compare damage, make sure those numbers account for relatively equal stats.

Flame Jet is also 10 ticks or 5 ticks per second, that is 2 seconds not 2.5…so you may want to redo the math.

I’ve tried grenades, and would rather take HGH with might duration, plus juggernaut.

3 times. .8s cast on grenades. 1.7k x3 is 5.1k
Was that grenade1?
3 hits per throw. 9 hits compared to 10.
And time it. its 2.5s. Like grenade one SAYS .5s recast timer, however, its .8s in reality.
Grenade vul stacking if of course another issue, in that debate. 24 stacks of vul in 6.5 seconds. even if we disinclude barrage which hits 8 times.

Juggernaut does not come close to making up for FT’s incredibly poor scaling.
That power gain is feeding into your skill coeff. (and weapon damage) both of which are vastly inferior. (kit vs kit is the same of course, but if we are talking about rifle melee aoe, that massively higher weapon damage radically shifts power towards it. Pistols slightly more.)

You are also making a scaling mistake. you say, compare equal stats, then compare low power/crit builds.
FT with free crit and poor scaling will look decent when you compare two build with poor power/crit damage.

That is the point. Gear for damage and grenades leave it FAR behind.