Guild Wars 2

Scrapper / Hammer / Flamethrower => power based build!

Flamethrower scales a lot more with power than condition, this WAS a fun build and reasonable easy to play.

Why on earth would you change flamethrower to benefit more from condition stuff !?

Now I need to go half condi and half power to get anything out of it, completely killing the HAMMER/ scrapper combo along with it.

why..just WHY?

Really? I love this change.

The only power attack on the FT was Flame Blast. Now the kit has a bit more “purity of purpose.”

Legit Prep In.5893:

[…]
why..just WHY?

You know the answer, it is engraved in the heart of every engineer, the bane of our existence….

Purity of purpose…

Tbh, I am highly dissappointed about the changes I saw today…
Gadgets and turrets are still untouched.
They changed flamethrower to a condi kit to “keep up burn stacks”…. why didn’t they add a small tick of burning on every damage tick of the flamethrower like many people suggested instead of just increasing the burn on the end of the channel by 2 seconds?

Doesn’t seem to fit the “purity of purpose” really well for me. The channel is doing 9 power based strikes in a row without any condi and just the very last tick is providing a condition.

You guys really are never happy about changes, now are you? Don’t be so demanding. It was a massive step into the right direction, even if it meant to make major changes. If you balance things you shouldn’t do everything alltogether or every Engi would have to relearn the profession anew. I’d like to see some changes to gadgets and turrets too, but I’m glad they had their priority on the thing that made Engi worth a pick in a team. The ppl at ANet are only humans too.

Xyonon.3987:

You guys really are never happy about changes, now are you? Don’t be so demanding. It was a massive step into the right direction, even if it meant to make major changes. If you balance things you shouldn’t do everything alltogether or every Engi would have to relearn the profession anew. I’d like to see some changes to gadgets and turrets too, but I’m glad they had their priority on the thing that made Engi worth a pick in a team. The ppl at ANet are only humans too.

I agree with making condi engi worth pick now was a good step, just simply not the way i wanted to go, but im okay with this

Kodama.6453:

Why didn’t they add a small tick of burning on every damage tick of the flamethrower like many people suggested instead of just increasing the burn on the end of the channel by 2 seconds?

Because it forces you to make a choice between riding out the full channel and applying 4 seconds of burning or swapping to something else mid-channel and getting nothing.

This buff serves to keep the FT in check in PvP/WvW while also forcing a bit of intelligent usage on the user in PvE.

With blasting light fields no longer granting retaliation (Flame Jet’s primary weakness), I don’t know if you realize how gigantic a buff this is to the FT in PvP. It may not be enough to make it viable in S6, but this is a MASSIVE step in the right direction.

Can we also be honest for a moment here? Flame Jet is one of the worst auto-attacks in the game. Calling it a power attack is a travesty.

I was expecting a very powerful nerf to powerbuilds, especially the FT. There is a not so small part of the community and devs who beleive the FT to be a condition-only-kit.

Still, compared to the previous balances and “purity of purpose,” we escaped the explosion with a broken rib and a scratch in the face. We can still move and fight. We’ll find a way to sustain and improve, as we always do. We are engineers after all ^^.

Xyonon.3987:

You guys really are never happy about changes, now are you? Don’t be so demanding. It was a massive step into the right direction, even if it meant to make major changes. If you balance things you shouldn’t do everything alltogether or every Engi would have to relearn the profession anew. I’d like to see some changes to gadgets and turrets too, but I’m glad they had their priority on the thing that made Engi worth a pick in a team. The ppl at ANet are only humans too.

Agreed. I hope they continue giving the kits more purity of purpose, and I look forward to changes with the other utility skills as well.

Also, good point on the Anet being people too.

Im more curious about shredder gyro lol

funny, it doesn’t LOOK like they nerfed flame jet in any way, which is all you do in that might stacking ft camping open world pve build

but wait, that power damage nerf to 2 you say

oh, well you have 25 might and they gave it burning. no biggie

shredder still useless, 150% of nothing is nothing

Burn spam is a boring playstyle. but since they try to push it, why not make air blast apply burning standard without nerfing the power aspect of flamethrower? Anet pls stop “buffing” by taking away. Thanks for the power, burst and fun nerf.

Sorry but Flamethrower was always a crappy power weapon. You can stack might even better and do more damage with hammer auto attacks. Also, might boosts condi damage as well, so not sure why everyone feels flamethrower was supposed to be a power weapon.

It was a hybrid weapon, with low power and condi damage. Power used it for #2 and that’s it in PvE. I’m glad they gave the flamethrower a more defined role and I hope to see much much more of this for the other kits.

I think this is the only interresting change in the whole patch for engi. All the rest is just boring numbers keeping things working the same way they did before. Keeping all our broken and bad utilities/traits the way they have always been.

But this actually changes how you use the flamethrower so i like it.

I played full celestial with hammer and flamethrower + 50% dmg absorb gyro. I 2vs1 were very rarely a problem. The 3-4k power punch detonate flame blast + hammer 5 +3 → most were already on their run. In sPvP this build rocked the boat for most matches I played in the last season. No other build was that nice to play nor was it that versatile in most situations.
Now it does 700dmg, with a 350dmg burning tick every second…. rolleyes

Hammer needs power, so did flamethrower. Using any kind of condidition instead was lowering the dps….And I would be not a lot of you used that flamethrower, but it did punch a very good dps when I ran it into several enemies…

What I’m hearing isn’t “flamethrower is now a bad weapon kit”, what I’m hearing is “Flamethrower isn’t what I want it to be anymore”, and to be honest about it, I don’t think it was ever what a lot of people thought it was to begin with. Whenever I heard people talk about it, they just AA spammed it, but 2-5 hardly even got mentioned. Now that it is been given more direction (and that direction is in favor of condi), some people are upset. I’m not sure why, you can still ignore the 2-5 skills, get your might stacking, and use the AA, nothing has really changed for you. But to complain that a FLAMETHROWER is now doing more BURNING is about the most ridiculous complaint I’ve ever heard in these forums!

I mean, seriously?!?

Flame blast was gold against foes in groups or well aligned. I don’t know if the burning will compensate the nerf, but It seems interesting.

I used flame thrower as a damage burst weapon with frequent blast and CC. It’s hosed for my power build now and bombs can’t replace its functionality. My build relied heavily on this.

Flame thrower was not an AA weapon, the AA was conditionally useful against targets with projectile reflect whom were kiting, and to attack someone through a wall. The brilliance of this kit was the blast access and huge group damage you could do with flame blast. The air blast was great for a CC and decap.

here’s a question, even if you get 3 stacks of burn to last the full duration listed, does it make up for the lost instant damage, assuming your running a power amulet and rune?

I feel stuff dies much faster now just by camping flamethrower in power build. Its a buff nevertheless.

guildabd.6529:

I feel stuff dies much faster now just by camping flamethrower in power build. Its a buff nevertheless.

I PvP, camping flame thrower is not an option. The damage that could be done while blasting a water field ( for example) Did significat damage to a close combatant and granted healing, especially along with the trait that blasts heal damage. It cannot provide the needed pressure in a power build that was vital to the usefulness of this kit.

try flamethrower with scrapper and sage amulet , with a sigil of intelligence … scrapper, invention alchemy and you will se how it is strong now. You don’t spam a lot of condi as with p/p but you have good damage with hammer and perma burning… try it for fun . In my opinion this change of ft is a good buff for engi in general -

After doing quite some tests, my build is dead now. Thanks anet!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASnUUB1ah1WBGpCsehl7iCsBjwAIcCDoLke1j9cH-TJBFABEcBA+vMAAPAg73fAA

This build, harmonized in all edges.
Perma might and stability. Fury 2/3rd of the time. Increased 20% crit when being closer to enemies. Everything burns, everything bleeds. While my char has very good toughness and HP.
Fire Blast + detonate -> Hammer 5 , Hammer 3 , Hammer 2 (if bored) , back to fireblast + detonate. = 12-20k dmg on up to 5 enemies in a very short time.

But now the blast dmg is gone and I lack 5-7k dmg from the above.

Condition on a scrapper build ? I don’t see any amulet that gives me nearly as much punch while keeping my socks on under fire with the recent changes.

While I read “increase dmg & decrease cooldown” in 4/5th of all other profession patch notes, they ofc had to fail with their math on engi:

Before the Patch on my build:
Flame Blast: 1500 crit
Detonate: 4000 crit
= 5500

After Patch:
Flame Blast: 350 crit
Detonate: 1150 crit
+ 1600 burning
= 3100

Who on earth does math at anet!? It’s not like ENGI is by far the LEAST PLAYED CLASS out there already. …

the 66% damage nerf to #2 did seem a little bit odd, the kit is not a condi kit.
adding one stack of burning won’t make it a viable condi kit, if you want condis grab your nades!
flamethrower WAS quite a decent power kit, the AA is still “ok” but its bomb kit all the way now, shame i loved the synergy of scrapper trait line with the FT.

Actually, these FT changes were the best things we could get because as a power only weapon, it was not good (because of the AOE capability) and as a condition only weapon, it was crap because it just didn’t bring enough conditions. FT is a hybrid weapon and seems to me these changes acknowledge that. The build I’ve been using for a long time just got more powerful … ALOT more.

someone said math

a 3 stack of 6 sec burn does 6.4k+ damage… in a condi build that isnt quite optimal and with no buffs on. buffffffffff super uber hard buff

They could have easely made flamethrower viable for both power, hybrid AND condi builds but now its only good for condi and condi focused hybrid builds. Sad.

It would not have been easy at all to make FT viable for power builds … any experienced veteran of MMO’s knows how fast spammable AOE direct damage builds get nerfed. FT was never going to favour power builds for this very reason.

You must have verry little imagination if you believe that it is hard and/or not possible to come up with a viable non abusable flamethrower kit for all kinds of builds (power/hybrid/condi).

I don’t even use flamethrower so i don’t care, but are you really having a difficult time seeing a kittening flamethrower as a condi weapon? Even before the patch condi engies used the flamethrower.

Great. If only they added burn to autoattack during the pulse.

Maybe 1/4 second burns, just for the flavor of it? It really makes no sense that a FLAMETHROWER burns only at the end of auto.

.#2 power nerf was massive and disappointing.

Kain Francois.4328:

Great. If only they added burn to autoattack during the pulse.

Maybe 1/4 second burns, just for the flavor of it? It really makes no sense that a FLAMETHROWER burns only at the end of auto.

why this is a bad idea:

having an instantly refreshing condi to cover something bigger (and make it impossible to cleanse) with a significant portion of skills (cleaning 1 condi) on an infinitely usable aoe attack with faster hits than any other cleaning skill would make it extremely difficult to ever have enough condi cleanse for many builds.

in other words, you literally walk up to someone and push 1 and they die.

its actually happened before, when leg specialist had no icd and warriors got unlimited amounts of immobilize. it isnt quite the same but its fairly close. that was certainly the week where i had the most fun ive ever had in gw2, chasing people down as a warrior and sword autoing them and they could not do anything and literally just died. and that warrior build: rare apothecary gear. not exotic, not ascended. and i could kill anyone i could get into melee range with. by autoing.

santenal.1054:

You must have verry little imagination if you believe that it is hard and/or not possible to come up with a viable non abusable flamethrower kit for all kinds of builds (power/hybrid/condi).

Tou aren’t going to find spammable AOE direct damage builds in MMO’s for a reason. This has nothing to do with imagination; it’s simply related to scaling and that’s something that is near impossible to balance for without non-easy solutions. So no, it’s not so easy as you think it is.

insanemaniac.2456:

why this is a bad idea…

Good points.

Still, I really think Flamethrower is lacking flavor. Maybe a stack of burn every 5 procs?

everyone celebrating that FT 2 now burns and ignores the fact that FT 2 had 66% damage reduced

Rezzet.3614:

everyone celebrating that FT 2 now burns and ignores the fact that FT 2 had 66% damage reduced

yeah, lower power for Burning. We can read patch notes.

Obtena.7952:

You aren’t going to find spammable AOE direct damage builds in MMO’s for a reason.

Have you not equipped the Bomb Kit?

Whether you like it personally or not, it makes perfect sense that the weapon that literally shoots streams of fire is a burn-based weapon. Fire burns, its what fire does. The only wonder is that it took them this long to change it.

It still needs tweaks. Namely higher duration burns or higher stacks to make up for the damage nerf on Flame Blast. But making it a condition / burn based weapon is completely logical.

insanemaniac.2456:

someone said math

a 3 stack of 6 sec burn does 6.4k+ damage… in a condi build that isnt quite optimal and with no buffs on. buffffffffff super uber hard buff

Sure, IF you go CONDI, then you may get to such values. But as scrapper (since the whole scrapper tree harmonizes perfectly with “close range” and “power build”) it is not possible to go condi AND power in spvp, due to the lack of an amulett that had toughness, power,precision, and condi …. I would gladly settle with a celestial amulet, but they removed that long time ago.

So long story short, as scrapper using the FT, it made no sense to have condi anywhere on your stats. But now they force me to bridge between power and condi to “utilize” the “new burning”, lowering the overall dmg from before where going purely power was the way to go.

I did around 5k dps at the golem in the raid test area. Now I only get 3,5 – 4k …. could someone maybe link me to a build that works better now ? And I’m not talking about a squishy 15k hp condi build only …. something usable in spvp with a bit more “works fine in every situation”

Flame blast used to be big part of my power build rotation too so I’m not happy with this change :/

Legit Prep In.5893:

insanemaniac.2456:

someone said math

a 3 stack of 6 sec burn does 6.4k+ damage… in a condi build that isnt quite optimal and with no buffs on. buffffffffff super uber hard buff

Sure, IF you go CONDI, then you may get to such values. But as scrapper (since the whole scrapper tree harmonizes perfectly with “close range” and “power build”) it is not possible to go condi AND power in spvp, due to the lack of an amulett that had toughness, power,precision, and condi …. I would gladly settle with a celestial amulet, but they removed that long time ago.

So long story short, as scrapper using the FT, it made no sense to have condi anywhere on your stats. But now they force me to bridge between power and condi to “utilize” the “new burning”, lowering the overall dmg from before where going purely power was the way to go.

I did around 5k dps at the golem in the raid test area. Now I only get 3,5 – 4k …. could someone maybe link me to a build that works better now ? And I’m not talking about a squishy 15k hp condi build only …. something usable in spvp with a bit more “works fine in every situation”

If you want melee power just auto attack with hammer or use bomb kit.

To people complaining about their build being dead:

Guess what, change happens. Learn to adapt. The profession as a whole is better off than what it once was. Your previous build doesn’t work they way it used to. That’s true for everyone at some point. Balance patches change how things work. That’s the point. They are trying to change things to make the game better for everyone. It’s not about you and your one particular build. If you can’t adapt, then I’m sorry, but you’re gonna have a hard time not only in the game, but life in general. Nothing stays the same.

This was a good patch for this profession. Hopefully the ideas behind some of the changes will continue, and we will get even better, more efficient, and more effective. Time will tell. In the meantime, roll with it, and enjoy the ride.

PierPiero.9142:

try flamethrower with scrapper and sage amulet , with a sigil of intelligence … scrapper, invention alchemy and you will se how it is strong now. You don’t spam a lot of condi as with p/p but you have good damage with hammer and perma burning… try it for fun . In my opinion this change of ft is a good buff for engi in general -

I’ve actually tried undead amulet plus the condi/tough/precision one. But just not the same and I miss having the vitality from Marauder or Paladin. Inteligence is fine but I like having sig of blood for a health buff and air/earth depending on power/condi. Overall its a nerf for my play style.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Obtena.7952:

You aren’t going to find spammable AOE direct damage builds in MMO’s for a reason.

Have you not equipped the Bomb Kit?

Yes and? You’re comparing bomb to FT gameplay? I think that’s a hard sell don’t you? Maybe if the bombs actually targeted players, you would be on to something, but that’s not how they work.

In pve open world, I actually prefer the new flamethrower. I was running the lazy ft build for open world, but this is an even better lazy build. And now that they buffed sd, I will try that once I get bored of burning mobs down with the new flamethrower.

The changes wasn’t good because they(Balance Team) stopped at half of way…
If they wants make FT condi based, they could started for the obvious, giving 1s burning to each hit of auto attack(Flame Jet)…
That increased time on last hit was… No words to describe.

The second skill(Flame Blast) still ok giving burning, but the esquece attack(Detonate Flame Blast) could be explosion(obvious) and keeping dealing high direct damage.

JETWING.2759:

The changes wasn’t good because they(Balance Team) stopped at half of way…
If they wants make FT condi based, they could started for the obvious, giving 1s burning to each hit of auto attack(Flame Jet)…
That increased time on last hit was… No words to describe.

The second skill(Flame Blast) still ok giving burning, but the esquece attack(Detonate Flame Blast) could be explosion(obvious) and keeping dealing high direct damage.

seriously

insanemaniac.2456:

Kain Francois.4328:

Great. If only they added burn to autoattack during the pulse.

Maybe 1/4 second burns, just for the flavor of it? It really makes no sense that a FLAMETHROWER burns only at the end of auto.

why this is a bad idea:

having an instantly refreshing condi to cover something bigger (and make it impossible to cleanse) with a significant portion of skills (cleaning 1 condi) on an infinitely usable aoe attack with faster hits than any other cleaning skill would make it extremely difficult to ever have enough condi cleanse for many builds.

in other words, you literally walk up to someone and push 1 and they die.

its actually happened before, when leg specialist had no icd and warriors got unlimited amounts of immobilize. it isnt quite the same but its fairly close. that was certainly the week where i had the most fun ive ever had in gw2, chasing people down as a warrior and sword autoing them and they could not do anything and literally just died. and that warrior build: rare apothecary gear. not exotic, not ascended. and i could kill anyone i could get into melee range with. by autoing.

its a design nightmare

Obtena.7952:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Obtena.7952:

You aren’t going to find spammable AOE direct damage builds in MMO’s for a reason.

Have you not equipped the Bomb Kit?

Yes and? You’re comparing bomb to FT gameplay? I think that’s a hard sell don’t you? Maybe if the bombs actually targeted players, you would be on to something, but that’s not how they work.

You said “you aren’t going to find spammable AOE direct damage builds” and that’s precisely what power engi is.

Kain Francois.4328:

Great. If only they added burn to autoattack during the pulse.

Maybe 1/4 second burns, just for the flavor of it? It really makes no sense that a FLAMETHROWER burns only at the end of auto.

This!
They thinks that the adversary will stay stopped in our front waiting the last hit

It’s so strange that people don’t read before posting.