Guild Wars 2

Currently I really like the Flamethrower Engy, but I’m looking around the forums and it seems kind of 50/50 with people saying its good or bad. I want to know if its a viable alternative compared to speccing for straight up just guns or grenades.

I can’t decide on these two builds so far, basically they are both 30 in Firepower and Alchemy, but I don’t know if I should put the last 10 in Explosives or Inventions.

http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/engineer#10|10|3187|4682|4700|2454|4065|10|1422|0|0|30|2266|1881|2265|0|0|0|0|30|0|1863|1479|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

or

http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/engineer#10|10|3187|4682|4700|2454|4065|0|0|0|0|30|2266|1881|2265|10|0|0|0|30|0|1863|1479|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

(I don’t know what trait I should get if I put 10 points in Inventions ^)

In both builds I don’t know which trait I should get in the first slot of the Alchemy tree, none of them seem very useful?

Then the skills itself, I think the healing turret is good, Flamethrower of course, is the elixir gun viable, since the traits good for the Flamethrower are equally good for the Elixir gun, wouldn’t that allow me to be offensive and supportive when necessary? I have no clue what to put for the last utility skill slot, and I hear good things about Supply Crate as an elite.

I want to really like the Flamethrower, but some traits like the first slot in the Alchemy tree seem useless.

The Firearms (Precision) tree has Flamethrower specific traits, but then I lose out in the Explosives (Power) tree so my total damage would be lower?

Is the passive regen of the Backpack Regenerator in the Alchemy tree useful?

With a flamethrower equipped, do my pistols or rifles go anywhere in the damage calculation with their base damage, stats, or any sigils as well?

Thank you for the help

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/engineer-pve-flamethrower-5716.html

This was my Flamethrower Bible. Read the summary. It will tell you EVERYTHING you need to know. One thing to remember, you’re not going to be melting people anytime before level 70, when you’ll have HGH AND Juggernaut. Again, read it, understand it, live by it!

The only thing I changed was that I use the Rocket Boots instead of Elixir C in PvE, because the Rocket Boots have a utility skill on 20s CD that applies a MASSIVE Burn, and with the Flame Legion Runes, its a guranteed 5% more damage, the skill helps if you’re caught with your shorts down (mining, harvesting, etc), because you can apply the Burn with the Chuck Norris kick, then Rocket backwards for room to hit Flame Blast (5% more damage on a Flame Blast that almost always crits = sweeeeeet!). I also threw my leftover 10pts into Explosives for Incendiary Powder: AGAIN! Burn-on-crit + Flame Legion Runes means 5% more damage, and already maxing out Firearms gives you a metric ton of Crit chance.

Also, if you equip an Engineer Kit (Flamethrower, Bomb, Elixir Gun), you lose the effectiveness of ALL stats & sigils on your weapons. I run with P/P, because sometimes the Gats are more effective than a Flamethrower (Close Quarters and being surrounded) with Poison Darts, Explosive Shot and most importantly: Blowtorch. But when you’re packing the Flamethrower, your weapon stats dont matter.

The Elixir Gun is AMAZING with the Build I linked, it allows for seamless swapping between the Flamethrower and the Elixir Gun, offering great support at the touch of a button.

Trust me, once you get past 70 with this build, you’ll be a wreckingball. Just circle-strafe, and use your dodge.

AND I CANNOT SAY HOW UNDERRATED BACKDRAFT IS. USE THAT SKILL! IT’S SAVED MY BACON MORE THAN I CAN COUNT!

Thanks for the pointers Faction, mucho appreciato

I love my flamethrower but i rarely use in the high end zones. Now I’m willing to try it out and see for myself. Could be fun, if the topography doesn’t kill it.

yuenzhe.6280:

Thanks for the pointers Faction, mucho appreciato

Anytime, buddy.

Remember: Don’t expect to be demolishing people with the Engineer, we’re not Warriors, but we can definately kill at a decent rate. We’re Utility. Not a DPS powerhouse. You’ll have to work for your kills a bit more than the average Warrior or Guardian (dodging, flying around with rocket boots, circle-strafing, etc), we can’t sit there and mash face with a Warriors Hundred Blades or a Guardians Whirlwind of ultimate lawnmowing and expect to be successful.

Oh, and Carrion Gear. Stack up on Carrion gear.

The knockback is incredibly helpful when dealing with jerks in the Eternal Battlegrounds jumping puzzle. I am always courteous and refrain from hindering the progress of others in the puzzle, but occasionally, some jerk has a stick up his butt and tries to ruin my day. I respond by unloading everything on him before knocking him off the platform and Supply Dropping him.

Also, the Flamethrower is hugely beneficial in that puzzle, since it gives light to everyone (torches only give light to the bearer).

Don’t underestimate the helpfulness of the Flamethrower.

I found this post looking to juice my flamethrower. It helped some, though I am still not impressed by what my engineer brings to the table without spamming grenades, which I don’t find particularly fun. =[

I do question your rune choice though: Why flame legion over strength? It is more reliable on the 5% bonus damage. And if your build hinges on stacking extra might, the 20% duration increases that, plus juggernaut will maintain an extra stack. You lose the 15% burn duration, but I think incendiary powder is a smarter choice anyway and more reliable to keep burning active on your target(s).

In some dungeons I’m the healing juggernaut, not fully flamethrower specialized, yet I’m able to deal decent AoE damage
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcQQJAqalIqSXn1yuF17ISoHS49JYgeoXA2dJqAmB
Ignore the stats and items, as it’s PvP builder and I’m talking about PvE setup
I’m using pistols or elixir gun in some situations, so the improved range feels useful
From inventions line movement speed and healing to power is just yes please
From alchemy, condition damage feels the most useful, even if I have around 1040-1050 vitality, it’s still like +50~53 condition damage

I’m wearing rampager armor (crit/cond) and cleric trinkets (pure power!), getting really decent survivability and plain dmg + nice burns

Breaking down the math. flamethrower is really really bad.

Flamethrower 1.
1.43 power scaling over 2.25s duration. 1s burning applied at the end of the 2.25s duration.

Pistol 1 is .325 power scaling every .5s.
Rifle 1 is .599 power every .75s.
Grenade 1 is .478×2 every .5s (.478×3 with grenadier)
Elixir gun 1 is .380 every .75s.

So, to reduce that into comparable values, .477 every .75s for flamethrower.
That is less then pistols, and rifles 1 in raw dps. Even if I forget pistols aoe, and bleed, and rifles range and pierce.

And that is not considering weapon damage. Flamethrower is 969 weapon damage.
A pistol is 1025, a rifle is 1205.
Weapon damage alone will account for 15-25% more damage from pistol or rifle auto attack alone. As damage is: skill coeff*weapondamage*power/armor

And that is just auto-attack. Auto attack is NOT the highest damage for pistol, rifle, grenades, etc. While flamethrower only has 1 other damage move. (Napalm is more about the fire field.) flame blast is buggy. Good damage when it lands granted.
the 10 hits over 2.25s is 10 chances to stack the bleed on crit. But note, pistols hit 4 times in 2s as well, and up to 8 times with coated bullets hitting twice. Even rifle is 3 times.

+15% damage trait is in alch. A line already HEAVY with great traits. are you going to give up h.g.h for it, or 409? And that 15% trait doesnt make it catch up to the others.

Burning and utility.
1s burning on a move that takes 2.25s to cast. This means flame1 can’t give perma burning, or stack duration. So, you don’t leave targets burning, after you hit them. Even pistol does this..
incind ammo. 60s cooldown, for 3 stacks of 3s burning. Kindof pathetic compared to grenade barrage. 30s cd on that, and 2-6k aoe damage.
Napalm. Fire field. A bit weird since flamethrower itself can’t combo it. But swapping is easy enough. A 24s cd on what is essentially just a fire field, and a small one at that, is poor. this needs to do more really. be a circle, not a line. shorter CD. larger aoe. Or longer burn.
Incendiary powder trait. Is single target due to cooldown. This will help you keep burns up 100% in 1v1 etc, for sure. but is very ineffective aoe.

Air blast. actually, not sure if this is a block or reflect on projectiles. either way not bad. But timing is tough. A wall would be better, but the short cd is ok. Pulling IN however is what the skill set needs. I don’t know why that was removed from the set.

smoke vent. Blind is good. but this is inferiour to static shot in the pistol line. It of course used to be a pull. Melee only, giving no ranged defense. longish CD, and no secondary effect. Look at a theives black powder. Why is this not a smoke field?
Backdraft WAS amazing. Smoke vent needs work. Its half a skill atm.

so, I really can’t justify flamethrower atm. Pistols apply blind and burns better, while dealing more melee aoe damage.
Flame does have a knockdown, and mobile proj block. which is good. that is the best part for sure.

Funny enough, I was just poking around with FT yesterday and today. I just can’t make it work for me.

Now, the really, really good: In wvw, defending a gate, it just plain shines. I can really apply alot of damage because, for whatever reason, anet allows flame jet to penetrate walls.
Other than that, and that gets old fast, I get more done on my PP builds.
I will use it for the utility more than anything.

**edited as I appear to be talking out of my …

Pretty much everything AoE goes straight through the gates in WvW.

I’ve been toying around with the Flamethrower lately because I hate Grenades (having to constantly ground target and move I find quite annoying, and miss a lot.) I’ve tried all the different weapon combos, and basically found that when you spec towards a lot of crit and use Incendiary Powder from explosives and Juggernaut from the Firearms line that in situations where you’re fighting mass groups of mobs the flamethrower can be pretty useful. Typically like, for example, in Orr farming as it doesn’t have that annoying slight delay that Grenades do where sometimes everything is dead before they even land.

With Juggernaut though, I don’t end up having to kite as much thanks to the extra toughness so I can just stand there and spray away. If it gets dicey just switch to my Elixir gun and hit #4 for a quick exit. In PvP I’ve tried it but ONLY in WvW and ONLY when moving with a zerg where I can just spray mindlessly in all directions. I haven’t tried it in sPvP because I’m not entirely convinced it would be very effective.

Though, with a high enough crit, fury up ( Elixir B ), I can stack bleeds, vuln, and burning for extended durations effectively giving me what feels like pretty good DPS against most targets as even if they cleanse the conditions the constant attacks reapply them fairly quickly. So I end up doing with #1 roughly 2.2k plus burning plus bleeding. It seems to work, there might be more powerful burst builds but the sustained damage feels pretty consistent.

I was enjoying the flamethrower for a while, but I started getting really sick of it bugging out and missing on it’s entire burn, especially on stationary targets. I ended up having a LOT more success with an elixir rifle build, and lately an explosives build. Both have been better for me in PvE and WvW than the flamethrower.

The Flamethrower is incredible in PvP. The knockback alone is worth everything,

Problem is, people look at the FT as a single target weapon. Then yes, its not that good. But in WvWvW its an amazing weapon. The more enemies in front of you, the better it become. AoE cone attack from it can hit multiple targets and all the sudden, it becomes a lot more fun. Also, the knockback as said previously, is an amazing skill against multiple targets. Not only does it knockback, it also shoots projectiles and spells thrown your way, back to those that casted/shot. In groups, FT is amazing. For soloing, then there are other weapons/kits around.

Twiz, every engi weapon is aoe pretty much.
Rifle pierces innately. so its 1 attack will hit 2-3 in the same way flamethrower’s 1 will. Slightly smaller cone obviously. Rifles 3 is aoe, and as large of a burst as blast, but 1000% more reliable. its 4 is aoe knockdown, its 5 is aoe burst.
Pistol is almost 100% aoe as well.

Both deal more aoe damage then flamethrower. Bomb and grenades also clearly deal more aoe damage.

FT 1 needs to deal about 50%-75% more damage. Seriously, its WAY behind the curve for damage output.
ft5 needs to drop a smoke field, and probably deal damage.
Toolbelt skill needs 30s cd tops. maybe less.
Compare grenade barrage, big ol’ bomb, and incendiary ammo. its not even close.

Ft5 doesn’t really need damage because it’s instantaneous and doesn’t interrupt your damage stream from other skills.. Air scepter 3 on the elementalist is the same in that respect. (Arguably that’s another example of a weapon that isn’t doing enough damage, but in both cases increasing the effect of the damaging skills seems more appropriate).

FT is not competitive damage. There’s just no two ways about it.

It does fine in any situation where you don’t need competitive damage (bunker, wvwvw to some extent, non-dungeon PVE).

I use it in PVE for farming sometimes just because it’s very easy. Just hit 2 from 600 range, follow in with auto attack and circle strafe till mob is dead. But it’s definitely not competitive when eeking the most damage out is required.

Yukishiro.8792:

FT is not competitive damage. There’s just no two ways about it.

It does fine in any situation where you don’t need competitive damage (bunker, wvwvw to some extent, non-dungeon PVE).

I use it in PVE for farming sometimes just because it’s very easy. Just hit 2 from 600 range, follow in with auto attack and circle strafe till mob is dead. But it’s definitely not competitive when eeking the most damage out is required.

Pretty much, this. However, Dungeoning with a Flamethrower isnt that bad. But the Elixir Gun provides a better group dynamic.

But everything else is pretty much on target. Hence why Im working on a P/P Elixir or P/P Turret setup right now. Thankfully, the only things I’d need to change are my Sigils and Runes / traits…as Im loaded with Carrion gear.