Guild Wars 2

I’ve been running a flamethrower build lately, and honestly, its a lot more fun than my old grenade build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUlspyanuShF17IBoH51v3V0jH3YK/pAbB;TgAA2U0YoRQjlGHNSaGWA

Anyway, I’ve noticed in my experience to really appreciate flame blast.
When timed well, its a short cooldown high burst ability that can hit twice.

However, I’ve also noticed that it completely fails 25% of the time.
And 75% of that, is straight after using air blast.

This is absurd. One of the main synergies of air blast is to create enough distance for the flame blast. Yet it constantly fails.

I have a feeling that if flame blast was closer to a 100% success rate, then the problems of the engineer would be lessened.

On the flame jet however, I’ve not found that it misses a lot. It hits very reliably for me, so I commend arenanet on that. One thing I could potentially change is that it gives 1 second of burn, for 2 and a quarter seconds of flame jetting, as indicated by the cast time indicator. I’d maybe consider adding one second on the first hit, alongside the one second on the final one.

I however, have two other problems.

Skill 4, Napalm is pretty bad. It used to be good long ago, when it blinded. But now, if an enemy stands in it for 3 seconds, they get 3 seconds of burn. This is incredibly poor considering how it is a line, and not a radius based combo field. And of course, performing combos with it is an option, but its not like fire combo fields are rare. So ultimately, it serves only one purpose, to be a combo field.

I think this skill needs to do the following: 2 seconds of burn, minimum when walking over it, reapplied every second.
And some secondary effect. Perhaps blind, perhaps simply more damage. Like acid bomb in a way.

Finally, I have issue with smoke vent. This skill I forget exists in a lot of cases. Its so short range and the description of it is very unclear.

The truth is, you can use it when stunned, so it has use there in melee when you are being whacked on. But really, for a 5th skill on a 20s cooldown, its extremely situational.

I think that it needs a 240 radius and either smoke field for a few seconds, or for it to properly break stun. So that we actually have access to a stun break within our kits. With that. I can see it being quite a good skill. Now? Its nothing but a poor replacement for one of the best skills we used to have, backdraft. I doubt we’ll get that back, but at least give us something useful in its place.

Oh and… fix sigils like you promised! This is a proc machine! I want it to proc!

I think napalm should immobilize a second or two and than cripple.
This would increase the uptime of the burns when people run over it, and it would make for a REAL boundary that enemies think twice about crossing to get to you.

What I hate myself is that the 2 ability explodes at a distance where the 1 ability is out of reach…

And yes: smoke vent needs a bigger radius and longer duration.
Or at least add confusion to it.
The 3 skill of main hand pistol beats this 20 sec cd anyday, in any way.

I miss Backdraft too. It would have been nice to get a blind on it instead of a burning condition. I still don’t get why it was removed altogether (plus it had a cool looking animation) and replaced by a poor man’s AoE blind.

At this point everyone probably agrees that Flame Blast should get a detonate option, it really does seem to make sense.

Something else I don’t get:

Juggernaut gives might, ok that’s usefull since it carries over after swapping out the kit, as well as increasing the flamethrowers damage.

But it also gives toughness.
Toughness suggests we try to take hits when using the flamethrower.
When moslty when someone comes for us, we knock them back, blast them, torch them, blind them if close again… and than we either run or swap out the kit for something else.

I don’t know what good the flamethrower is for me once I used the knockback and the blind, in terms of defense.

It’s a weird design this flamethorwer:

it’s not ranged, but outranges itself… (2 outranges 1 as I said above), even the knockback from 3 outranges 1.

It’s not conditional damage, but not everything scales on power either (napalm doesn’t…)

It’s cc yes, but limited since napalm basically scares no one and the blind is used too fast and on melee only.

So it’s not the best defense either…

And not a real support aside the knockback, since the blind will only help you or anyone really really close to you.
While the fire field is too narrow for others to take full advantage of most of the time.

Don’t get me wrong: I like the flametrower, but I have serious questions about the compatibility of the skills together. They seem almost randomly thrown together.
Like making a fire field… but not a single finisher in it?

I find more logic in the tool kit than in this kit.

The one biggest fix I want on my FT engi is give me the option to detonate skill 2 in the same manner our mines are done underwater.

It is SO frustrating to only get the full effect of this skill ONCE in most fights (when pulling) or by trying to use air blast >switch to rifle and net shot > switch back and get the ball there BEFORE net breaks. Needless to say most of the time it still passes by them to explode JUST behind them.

A simple double key (once to launch, once to detonate) would change this skill SO much that I think I could live with everything else for the time being.

Wulfsbayne.8401:

The one biggest fix I want on my FT engi is give me the option to detonate skill 2 in the same manner our mines are done underwater.

It is SO frustrating to only get the full effect of this skill ONCE in most fights (when pulling) or by trying to use air blast >switch to rifle and net shot > switch back and get the ball there BEFORE net breaks. Needless to say most of the time it still passes by them to explode JUST behind them.

A simple double key (once to launch, once to detonate) would change this skill SO much that I think I could live with everything else for the time being.

I disagree.

The damage is good, and the cooldown is low.

The problem is the constant obstructions. That is the needed fix.

For the timing, the positioning and the cooldown. The damage is fine.

Err, I have no issue with the damage at all. What i was saying is even using air blast to knock them back and INSTANTLY triggering skill 2 usually means that by the time it gets to them they have got up and started moving toward you, which means that is passes through and explodes behind them, causing you to miss the damage potential.

Even dodging backwards after air blast (if viable) sometimes is not enough to get the positioning right. Much like the guardian skill that has the same mechanic, you launch the attack and it will go so far before exploding. With a Guardian though you have the option to detonate it early, where with an engi it is always the same tethered distance from point of origin.

Hope that clarified. If you still disagree well then we just see things different, no harm no foul =D

Its different thinking really.

In PvE mobs aren’t that smart.
In PvP undoubtedly.

I can see a detonate being added.

Priority should be the ‘obstructed’ though. That’s just too annoying.

Flamethrower is a kit that is very close to being functional in PvE and even in PvP. The issues holding it back are mostly numbers issues, and by that I mean damage needs to come up a good deal on the #1 ability. I get that it is an AoE weapon, and should not have as high of single target dps as the rifle. But remember that the range of flamethrower is very short, so the damage should be high to compensate.

One non-numbers issue that needs addressing is the number 2 ability. Despite accounts in this thread that you can push foes back with air blast and immediately hit them with a #2 flame blast, I can assure you this results in “Obstructed” 100% of the time. The synergy between these abilities should be high but at the moment they cannot be used together. Another issue with the number 2 ability is that it needs a detonate mechanic, where you press once to fire and again if you want to detonate it early.

Air blast is fine as is.

The AoE blind isn’t amazing, but I’ll take it if my damage on #1 comes up a good 25% or so.

The fire wall just needs burns to stack up better, as someone else mentioned earlier in this thread. It gives a 1 second burn for every 1 second that someone stands in it. Of course you can spec 30 points in to explosives to get 30% condition duration but this is not a real option because there are must-have traits for flamethrower that do not allow such heavy investment in to the explosives tree.

And that is really the last complaint I have about flame thrower. I really like the traits for it. In fact I like them so much that I can’t use flamethrower without them, and this is a design problem. I think the base effectiveness of flamethrower should be brought up, and then these traits can be brought down to a level to which they provide a nice boost, but are not must-haves. Players don’t want to be told, “If you use a flamethrower, Anet has decided your first 50 trait points for you.” And once you’ve spent 50 points, the last 20 just kind of fall in to place so there is really just one viable build.

I know this all sounds critical, but really this kit has great potential, and of all the kits it is the closest to being what I consider ‘finished,’ so I hope its a priority. The look of the kit and the abilities are great, and everything about it ‘feels right.’ It is satisfying and fun to use. I really like the toolbelt skill for it too.

Napalm needs replaced by backdraft, the blind needs to be a smoke combo field.

fixed.

edit: oh and the 2nd ability makes a combo field fire. there now we’re good.

You think the damage on #1 is up to par though? The direct damage component was so low that I found the only way to really make it work was to have both the 30% chance to bleed on crit, and the 30% chance to burn on crit to squeeze some extra dps out of it. Even then I just don’t see myself using this kit if the main attack is going to be so weak.

Please don’t take away toughness from juggernaut trait it’s very important for a flamer ! if you realize that flamer is a close combat weapon yes yes yes knock them back but how many times can you do that ? just leave the trait alone currently now that trait is prefect

what is with the “obstructed” even using elixir gun elixir F or net shot on a flat ground behind or infront of my target i still suffer “obstructed” effect

However, I’ve also noticed that it completely fails 25% of the time.
And 75% of that, is straight after using air blast.

This is absurd. One of the main synergies of air blast is to create enough distance for the flame blast. Yet it constantly fails.

I have a feeling that if flame blast was closer to a 100% success rate, then the problems of the engineer would be lessened.

Yeah, it’s beyond annoying.
It’s been discussed to all hell and it’s confirmed.

What it boils down to (this is semi-educated guesswork) is that like all permanently connected games GW2 needs to do a minimum of path prediction, or it’d be unplayable on any ping higher than a handful of milliseconds. There is also, often, a small discrepancy between animations and where the actual mob marker is positioned, while the animation is happening.

What this means is that when you hit airblast, the mob marker has either moved (internally, not the animation) so fast (because it teleported) between the two spots that the engine’s prediction places it a mile away from the blast and makes it fail, or it’s delayed, and mob is thought to still be at your feet, and therefore the blast lands on nothing.

From testing and looking at other knockbacks where I was at higher than my #3 range, I’m inclined to say it’s the former, because the blast always just “fails” and disappears, instead of travelling to the pre-knock position of the mob.

It is far from a trivial problem to solve at an engine level, the routines used for these games need all sort of interpolations, heuristics and tricks to give the impression of fluidity despite the fact you always have lag well in excess of your event loops, it’s not AN’s shortcoming that they have to use those tricks, they are axiomatic to writing an MMO.

What is at fault, IMO, is the design of #2. As it’s been suggested many times ALL its problems would go away if it was a double tap ability that could be detonated, or simply got its direction from the target, but always went the full distance parallel to the ground and exploded at the end of travel time. Or ideally both (decent pathing + detonate at will + detonate at max distance travelled if not manually detonated).

As many have said, the big problem (or one of them) is #2 just not working that well, either by bug or design. I think the easiest fix would be to either:
a) Make it able to be detonated with a 2nd press, which has the pitfalls that it moves quite fast which can cause issues with high latency.
b) Make it detonate when it hits a target, not at the ‘end’ of its range. So if a target is right in your face when you lose it, they get hit by the projectile (and take the minor damage it does), then it detonates at that location doing its bigger AoE. No latency, no (or less) terrain problems and makes it the high burst its seemingly intended to be.

Flame Blast shouldn’t go through enemies like they weren’t there. It should explode on impact, not on a preset timer.

The other problem is that it gets obstructed ALL the time. So either it goes through the enemy and doesn’t explode as you intended, or it misses.

Something like this should have been fixed in a short time frame. Just make the hit box for the Flame Blast interest with enemy hit boxes and explode upon contact.

If it just went for whatever you have targeted and explode on impact, it’d become just a button you HAVE TO press every time the CD is up to do ideal dps. AN doesn’t seem too fond of this model from everything I’ve seen and they seem to prefer synergistic/situational approaches and moving away from rotations in favour of multistate abilities you have to put some effort into (cast + activation and so on).

I don’t think they’d do what you suggest, and honestly wouldn’t want them to. An option to detonate it or auto detonate at max distance would mean some thoughts beyond just pressing it every few seconds would have to go into it, either for detonating or to find the perfect range before shooting it, and I like that about GW2’s playstyle a lot, and hope AN stick to their guns in those regards.

I’ve been running a flamethrower build all the time recently, it’s just too fun. I’m not big on sPvP, but i always take my flamethrower into PvE and WvW and have had much success with it.

There is definitely a bug with the 2 skill where it will miss every time if used immediately after the knockback. As an alternative, I found that an overcharged rifle shot followed by flame blast works just as well, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that the 3-2 combo doesn’t work very well. I also think that the flame blast should auto detonate if it hits an obstruction, kinda like the pistol auto. Also, I’ll admit that the flame wall is lame. It does need a 2 second burn to make it special. Right now, my only use for it is to set up a combo field for a zerg fight or kite thieves through it.

Smoke vent I initially thought was lame too. However at second glance, it’s a rather fantastic skill. An on demand blind that you can use while you’re stunned/knocked down/whatever and you can use without interrupting animation if useful despite it’s radius. It guarantees and uninterrupted stomp on warriors, rangers, guardians, engineers, and I believe necros so long as you pay attention while you’re in the middle of your finisher. I’ve avoided big hits from hammer warriors by popping smoke vent while knocked down. In tight situations, smoke vent can make a big difference. Just keep an eye out for these opportunities.

Credit for the mid stomp blind idea goes to whoever wrote that engie guide stickied to this board. Thanks for that one!

smoke vent is good but the area of effect is way to small

Smoke Vent’s radius needs to be more like Smoke Bomb (from Bomb Kit).

Kimbald.2697:

Something else I don’t get:

Juggernaut gives might, ok that’s usefull since it carries over after swapping out the kit, as well as increasing the flamethrowers damage.

But it also gives toughness.
Toughness suggests we try to take hits when using the flamethrower.

Toughness so you can survive longer to get those Might stacks.
Also its an on demand 200 toughness. You can change kits while CC’d even, and can be used if your stun break is on cooldown. Swap to it while an ele knocks you back and a Dragons Tooth is above you. During 100b. Grab it while trying to get line of sight when mobility cooldowns are used, to reduce aoe damage from a busy point.

I mean a shield gives you what, 60 armor? That means equipping a flamethrower is like wearing three shields at once. I think the trait works quite well and is epic.

GankSinatra.2653:

Kimbald.2697:

Something else I don’t get:

Juggernaut gives might, ok that’s usefull since it carries over after swapping out the kit, as well as increasing the flamethrowers damage.

But it also gives toughness.
Toughness suggests we try to take hits when using the flamethrower.

Toughness so you can survive longer to get those Might stacks.
Also its an on demand 200 toughness. You can change kits while CC’d even, and can be used if your stun break is on cooldown. Swap to it while an ele knocks you back and a Dragons Tooth is above you. During 100b. Grab it while trying to get line of sight when mobility cooldowns are used, to reduce aoe damage from a busy point.

I mean a shield gives you what, 60 armor? That means equipping a flamethrower is like wearing three shields at once. I think the trait works quite well and is epic.

Using it when stunned makes all the difference of course.
Especially since the blind from the flamethrower works when stunned too…

And I think I’m also underestimating toughness as a stat I guess.
I can’t really figure out how much those 200 by itself mitigate. Off to the wiki again I guess, allthough I think those kind of numbers aren’t givin in this game, right?

I wasn’t saying the toughness was useless by the way, just odd
The whole flamethrower design does run all directions…
One thing I would like is that the point at wich FT 2 explodes wasn’t just on the very outer edge of where FT1 can still hit.
More often than not you find yourself either too close for both, or too far.

Found something on toughness, going to armor, going to damage numbers, which are given:

armor = defense + toughness (which you used for your example of comparing it to 3 shields apparantly)

seems a simple division:

weapon damage x power (x bonuses to damage) / armor

So those 200 toughness is like the opponent has 200 power less, plain and simple.
Not too shabby for a free bonus.

The #2 skill is so aggravating! Many times i find it more work to try and perfectly line it up than to just mash flame jet. If our #2 skill had a detonate or worked with the push back, it would up our damage and usefulness so much!

I’m cool with the blind skill, but I do have to agree i only use it when stunned. It could have a little more usefulness.

I like the toughness bonus on juggernaut and the might sure does help a lot, especially if you use the tricks to get it from ~6 stacks 100% uptime to ~11 stacks 100% uptime.

This is probably the coolest weapon for engineers and its so broken at the moment. FIX IT!!!

I have been using flamethrower in s/tpvp for a few days now. The one thing I would like is to have the ‘1’ skill be aim-only. With that capability it would be much easier to use as an aoe weapon. Currently I often have to rapidly switch targets to create a sweeping effect.

The other skills im ok with I guess. I dont care much for ‘4’ but I acknowledge that its a skill meant to be used outside of the flamethrower kit.

Also while 200 toughness is nice I did not find it useful for a defensive/control based build. That’s way too much into the precision line for 200 toughness and the blowback ability. It didnt work well and I feel you really need utility slots to be ‘tanky’.

I imagine balancing the amount of procs the flamethrower can produce from a sigil is ‘fun’. As of now you can chose power or crit with the kit and be satisfied either way. I imagine it will be challenging to maintain that choice once theyre done with all that sigil business.

To reiterate: changing ‘1’ to free-aim, for me, would really strengthen its tourney viability (I am happy with what im using but there needs to be other ways of doing it)

Kimbald.2697:

Something else I don’t get:

Juggernaut gives might, ok that’s usefull since it carries over after swapping out the kit, as well as increasing the flamethrowers damage.

But it also gives toughness.
Toughness suggests we try to take hits when using the flamethrower.
When moslty when someone comes for us, we knock them back, blast them, torch them, blind them if close again… and than we either run or swap out the kit for something else.

lolwat

It gives toughness because the range of the kit isn’t very long, and can put you in danger. It doesn’t “suggest you take hits”. The only things that suggest you try to get hit are retaliation, blocking, counterattacks and the like.

toughness doesn’t suggest us to get hit, it only help us to stay alive as flamer isn’t a long and huge range it’s a pretty close combat weapon, how many time can you blast them away or blind them ?

Am I the only one who does not want the #2 ability to have a detonate ability? As it is right now its a hard to land but high reward ability. It forces you to be mid range for it to work, which is kinda cool. It’s like rangers longbow #1 attack that does more damage the farther away you are, I think mesmer greatsword is similar but I’m not sure. Trying to stay at the ideal range, not close enough for melee but not too far, adds an interesting mechanic to FT that is somewhat unique to it.

Adding a detonate ability will mean you can use it anywhere between 0-600 range just like any other 600 range skill, and it would be pretty easy to land just annoying cuz you have to click the button twice. The ideal usage would be to just use it every cd cuz it does good damage. Think of how little this adds to gameplay compared to having to get to the right range to use it for big damage, or you can just use it close range for smaller damage as it goes through them.

Obviously the constantly being obstructed by a bump in the terrain is a different issue that needs to be fixed, but after that is fixed it would be nice if it remained something that you have to do some work to be able to land it, but with high damage if you do manage to land it.

Even if they fix the obstruction issues, it will still have all the path prediction and lag issues related to slow projectile skills in this game that you have no control over other than firing at a target.

Currently it’s nowhere near high skill, you just stay at max range for jet, take literally two animation steps back at the end of jet, fire it off, and walk two steps back in. How is that more skill than detonating it at the right moment? I feel it’s the other way around.

In a game that has so many knockbacks, locator/marker based damage rather than just filtered target based like every other game, given the necessary path prediction it needs a mechanic change to become satisfactory, or don’t expect to ever see a #3 + #2 combo working well, and expect to see it freaking out on every jumping/charging/dashing mob in the game forever, the way it does now.

AlphaDuck.7592:

Am I the only one who does not want the #2 ability to have a detonate ability? As it is right now its a hard to land but high reward ability. It forces you to be mid range for it to work, which is kinda cool. It’s like rangers longbow #1 attack that does more damage the farther away you are, I think mesmer greatsword is similar but I’m not sure. Trying to stay at the ideal range, not close enough for melee but not too far, adds an interesting mechanic to FT that is somewhat unique to it.

Adding a detonate ability will mean you can use it anywhere between 0-600 range just like any other 600 range skill, and it would be pretty easy to land just annoying cuz you have to click the button twice. The ideal usage would be to just use it every cd cuz it does good damage. Think of how little this adds to gameplay compared to having to get to the right range to use it for big damage, or you can just use it close range for smaller damage as it goes through them.

Obviously the constantly being obstructed by a bump in the terrain is a different issue that needs to be fixed, but after that is fixed it would be nice if it remained something that you have to do some work to be able to land it, but with high damage if you do manage to land it.

I for one do not mind having a skill that I need to “work to use”, provided that I have 2 things. One is another reliable source of damage, and two that I CAN “work it” into a useable position during a fight.

Sure as you said I can ignore the damage potential of the explosion and simply take the little hit as it passes through them while they stand on my toes, but honestly at that point I feel like I am wasting a cool down since another cycle of Flame Jet is giving me just about as much damage, it’s just a choice of vuln. or burning / bleed.

It just seems to me that we HAVE a tool that “should” make it work with Air Blast. If a mob is all in your face, hitting them with Air Blast (or Overcharged Shot) puts them about where they would need to be for the Flame Blast explosion. Even if you have the reflexes of a puma though, by the time you hit them with air blast UNLESS you net shot them or combine it with a back roll (which you can’t count on having the space to do) by the time that Flame blast gets to where they were at they have started running toward you and once again you are “making do” with the smaller damage.

By all means if you can explain to me how you are working it into a fight outside of the initial pull or using an NPC/other player to position them so that you are getting the full effect of the skill I am MORE than willing to listen and learn, and that is NOT sarcasm. I know I am not the best engi out there by any stretch so if I can learn a new trick I am always willing to pick one up =D

I don’t even want it to explode on impact like some others do, I WANT it to be a skill that takes some effort to use, but the way it is right now I only get the full effect when pulling or if I am with another player that keeps them in the “sweet spot”, or the RARE moment when the stars align, my CC works right, and I am fighting in an open field with a ton of room to move.

Don’t get me wrong, the skill needs some changes to work, I just dont think adding a detonate ability is the right way to do it. If I were the ANet dev changing it here is what I would do:

Give it faster projectile speed for one. Using it directly after air blast should be a good way to land it, but not quite guarenteed. Making it so it moves fast enough that its almost about to explode by the time they recover from the knockback would give them time to dodge it or block it if they wanted, but otherwise it would hit them. Also that would solve the issue where it always misses if your opponent is moving perpendicular from you.

Also, I’d give it a slightly smaller range so that it explodes at about the max range of the #1 flamethrower ability. That kinda gives the FT a “sweet spot” where it’s very strong, about 400 range away, and good engineers would try to stay at that range, and good opponents would try to stay out of that range.

Lastly, I would make it move through most ground terrain so it didn’t get obstructed and just dissapear. Like if it hit a bump on the ground it would keep going until it got to its range and then explode. The exceptions would be stuff like walls and boxes. But if it hit something like that, instead of just dissapearing like it does now, it would explode and do its damage. This would also add another way to land it, if your opponent is up against a wall or obstacle you could use that to your advantage.

As far as ways to get into that sweet spot, there are plenty of skills that help. Immobilizes like net shot or glue shot are good. Knockbacks like the obvious one air blast, but also overcharged shot, personal battering ram, or the shield #4 ability(i forget what it’s called, the one that reflects projectiles and you can hit the button again to knock back). Also positioning skills like jump shot or rocket boots are useful. Jump shot mostly if they are too far away, you could use it to get closer, or even to get right next to them to follow it with a knockback. Trying to work these skills into your flamethower build and using them at the right time makes for interesting gameplay, where as just being able to detonate it makes it way easier to use, because you just use it whenever they are anywhere less than 600 range.

By the way I’m mostly thinking in terms of pvp cuz that’s mostly what I play, it obviously is a lot different trying to use something like this against players that are moving all over in only semi predictable patterns. NPC mobs that just constantly run at you because they are melee, or ones that just mindlessly stand still and shoot at you cuz they are ranged, are going to be a bit different. You seem to be talking more about pve while I’m talking about pvp, and it’s difficult to balance it for both so idk about that aspect.

If you take into account the blast radius of #2 and the distance at which it explodes, you can find that sweetpsot where #1 still connects and #2 still blasts from the back of your target, hitting it full damage.

In theory these two abilities merge well.

Now good luck getting that sweetspot in a hectic dungeon or worse: pvp fight…

note: several replies on my toughness remark: I was thinking out loud and by now I see the use of it in the flamthrower.
I stand corrected, or better: I didn’t see the point and now I do.

In my experience, Flamethrower is very nice for condition damage because of the Sharpshooter minor trait (Firearms line). With a crit build and some luck it can stack surprisingly high number of bleeds rather quickly. Sigils would be very nice as well, although they would make Flamethrower a bit OP, I fear.

I agree that the #2 could use a detonation secondary ability (I would be ok with it even using it increases the overall cooldown). I also find it very annoying that #2 often gets obstructed. BTW, it seems to be a general issue with the engine – similar problem is also true for the evade ability on Thief’s SB (when you jump backwards) – even the smallest bump in the terrain cancels the move.

An issue with #1 is that is sometimes has issues with hitting constructions in PVE. No idea what’s the problem here.

Other then that, I really like the Flamethrower!

There are so many ways an engy can push back , one included in the kit. Aren’t engineers supposed to be swappiny between weapon and kits? I think 2 is fair.

Made a thread about this last week, although people claim I was exaggerating over the issue.

to all those wondering why Juggernaught gives toughness, Take a look at some traits and Runes, and yes, Napalm and Smoke vent needs some revamp, and Skill 2 needs to be fixed

also why rifle skills instead of the vulnerability/cool down reduction traits in your build?

Combine Smoke Vent and Napalm (blind on shot at player and on hit at location)

Then give us back backdraft on our #5… it was awesome and a lot of people want it back (not to mention the sweet animation it had)

Question about the FT: How is crit calculated, and does the crits from FT proc traits/etc?

Id change FT quite a bit honestly, a lot of issues with that kit.

ability 1: Slightly longer range, more damage, doesnt trigger Retaliation.
More range so you dont knock enemies out of your own abilities range…
The damage on this thing is to weak, its a 2second channel and does a little more damage then a 3/4sec Hip Shot. But not anywhere close to warrent such a slow castrate.
Retaliation against this is pretty much a suicide for the Engineer. It procs 10 instances of Retaliation. You actually deal more damage to yourself then to the enemy you hit. And since its an aoe weapon, ho boy if you use it in a crowd buffed with Retaliation.
But, 1 is our only constant reliable damage ability so not using it is simply not an option because then we basicly have no damage left.

ability 2: Easy fix: Add a detonate function.
Slightly more effort fix: Shoot at a target, impact on target causing explosion and creating a burning field.

ability 3: Its fine. Only good and reliable ability on the FT.

ability 4: Its horrible. Difficult to use, the game displays the angle it takes wrong half the time and the napalm doesnt go the way you wanted it. The damage on it is pitiful, 1 tick of burning (thats ~500dmg in a condition build, much less if you dont stack cond.dmg)
This ability doesnt scare anyone off, and its just a long cooldown fire-combofield. Thats it, horrible design. Buff the damage drastically to punish people for getting hit or going through it and add a second condition. Blind and/or cripple come to mind.

ability 5: Id much rather see Backdraft back. It was a great ability that gave a skilled player a ton of uses out of it.
But if we must stick with the aoe (yawn) blind. Then atleast make it worthwhile. Slash the cooldown, create a smoke field for 3seconds that blinds and counts as a combofield.

Obviously, fix all the bugs. And presto, its now a good weaponkit without neccesarily changing all the skills around. Currently, its just awefull.