Everyone does damage, everyone does support, everyone does healing, why take a kit that does less dmg and only gives you a aoe pushback?
have you actually read any of this thread? you ought to.
Know what? I’m done here. Maybe someday you’ll realize offense is the best defense, especially in this game. Yeah, I could devote my entire build to be tankier, or I can stay out of the way, dodge and kill stuff. Hell, for most of the content in this game I can walk right up to enemies and blow them up without worrying about dying anyways. Yes, even Arah and Fractals. You may call it a playstyle, but I call it being optimal.
You may think the best defense is a good offense, but given the popularity of Guardians and how sought-after they are in PvE groups, I’m inclined to disagree. The best defense is a good defense, and Guardians are very good at it.
The projectile walls, regenerative skills, Protection, Aegis, and CC abilities of a Guardian in a group makes a night and day experience for Warriors. It allows Warriors to focus on their DPS without slotting defensive skills on their bar. Because they don’t need to. A Hammer Guardian is giving them Protection/Aegis so that they don’t have to worry about anything.
Why is it wrong to treat Engineers similarly? We are just as good a support class as Guardians are. We have Water fields. Light fields. Condition removal skills. Projectile walls. Group revives. Regeneration. Regenerative health skills that stack on top of Regeneration. Fire field. Interrupts. Crowd Control. Etc. Etc.
If you want to stand from 1500 range and use your Grenade Kit, that’s your call man. Call it “optimal.” But there’s more than one way to skin a cat, and I find that the Engineer succeeds just as efficiently with the Flamethrower—simply for different reasons. Not only am I more efficient with support skills from the Elixir Gun than you are, my support boons last longer having 30 points in Alchemy for Boon Duration, and I can additionally offensively boost my group with Fury and Might through Napalm’s Fire field that you called totally useless.
Swimming in stacks of Might for a few seconds of work between a Guardian and Engineer is hardly useless. And I find that given the flexibility of my build in both offensive and defensive boon support, it doesn’t really matter what the composition of the group is in the first place.
If you want to box yourselves into “optimal” setups, go for it. But that was hardly the purpose of this thread and I’m confused how it got to this stage in the first place.
Everyone does damage, everyone does support, everyone does healing, why take a kit that does less dmg and only gives you a aoe pushback?
Well the Flamethrower does a bit more than that, doesn’t it? (And I would say Air Blast is more conical than AoE.)
I mean sure, you can use the Elixir Gun with the Grenade Kit, but the play style just isn’t the same. Using Fumigate to remove conditions on the melee guys standing right on top of the boss just doesn’t happen as efficiently when you’re standing from 1500 range versus being there right next to him in the thick of it. And if you tried to do that as a Grenadier, I don’t think you’d survive as well with your Rampager gear.
Another thing: do Grenade Kit Engineers actually use the Healing Turret? It only has a radius of 480. If you’re standing all the way in the back, nobody is benefiting from your Water field or condition removal. Much the same could be said of Runes of Altruism, or most group buffs in general. Of course: you’re probably going to be using HGH anyway with Elixir H.
It’s things like this you have to be mindful of. You can’t just look at everything on paper and conclude that a build is worth running or not. Try using what we’ve explained or some variant of it in a few dungeons. It just may surprise you.
The “projectile walls, regenerative skills, Protection, Aegis, and CC abilities of a Guardian” can be used to full effect on a dps spec guardian. All of those except for hard CC come from utility slots, which don’t force him to give up his greatsword, and the greatsword provides the best AOE pull in the game. An FT/EG engi is giving up a lot more damage that guardian is to provide support to the team.
“We are just as good a support class as Guardians are.” Gotta disagree with you there, at least in terms of PVE – stability and reflections are probably the strongest support in the game, and we don’t really have either. A juggernaut engi can be a decent anchor when no guardian is available, but I wouldn’t say a water field compares to reflects.
I think the FT/EG engi is giving up a little too much dps for support capabilities than most speed dungeon runners would be comfortable with, but then again no speed runner in their right mind would run without a guardian (CoF part 1 notwithstanding). If you find yourself in a pug with two thieves, a mesmer and a zerker warrior, it might not be bad to put on some toughness and juggernaut. I find Nades/EG provides a better balance of dps and utility, but i think that’s matter of personal taste.
In PvE, unless your in DNT’s guild or something it’s not so much about what’s “optimal” as “what is good enough, and is fun to play”. The FT/EG set up clearly fits that description. For PvP, bunkers seem to be the preferred roll for engis, so I’m not sure a glass cannon grenadier would be demonstrably better than an FT “tank”.
Either way, I agree with the OP in what I think he was trying to get across – the roll of the flamethrower is counter intuitive. Your shooting flames at people, your forced into close quarters, this thing should do massive dps. Instead, we get a fire field, an aoe knockback, and some decent damage. I disagree that FT needs to be changed to meet the expectation. We already have an amazing DPS kit that works at range so we don’t need to be sacrificing survivablity for that DPS. Leave FT as it is, a niche kit, and leave the newbies spamming flame jet to their fun.
Everyone does damage, everyone does support, everyone does healing, why take a kit that does less dmg and only gives you a aoe pushback?
Because with proper traits it gives you for one 200 toughness without the need to go 20 points in toughness tree.
It gives you might buff which can stack up to 10-11 with some gear and food (mine steadily hoovers around 10 stacks untouched, just with food buff). It also makes effortless to use for example food which grants you magic find under the effect of a boon, since you have one permanently.
It can combo field in area might.
It has a semi range so you needn’t to be licking your opponent’s armpits not squinting at the screen predicting the opponent’s movements to throw that great gernade kit at 1.500 range, hoping he will run into it.
With a FT oriented build you can easily swap for EG and be a complete support to your group (oh, how many exp paths been run with me like that and instead of group falling apart we’ve finished.)
It looks awesome. Burn it, burn it with FIREHHH, baby.
No, but really.
It’s up to that kaboom fan to use his kit, but don’t go bashing on my playstyle and kit just ‘coz you ain’t smart enough to make it work for yerself.
This game drew me particularly for the freedom in builds (Went for Rift ‘coz of that before, oh, the disappointment) and really, unless you’re very experimental or blind (or 6 years old), you can’t go wrong with builds. There’re so many, almost as many as players.
I run FT (EG instead when needed), 10/30/0/30, I have 3 sets of gear (Rampager with prec, Cleric with water, Knight with dolyak), three sets of assorted accessories and just swapping these around – without the need to change the build – makes a lot of difference. I can farm, I can support, I can melt down things.
I have fun and I make it work nicely and been complimented many times and asked for build and gear. Because I want to, because I have fun in it.
You don’t, good; don’t use it, use what you like.
But. Do. Not. Touch. My. Fire.
Another thing: do Grenade Kit Engineers actually use the Healing Turret? It only has a radius of 480. If you’re standing all the way in the back, nobody is benefiting from your Water field or condition removal. Much the same could be said of Runes of Altruism, or most group buffs in general. Of course: you’re probably going to be using HGH anyway with Elixir H.
When I am not in HGH, yes I do, but I set it where people aren’t standing to minimize the chance of it getting hit with AoE splash damage, and even instruct them to stay at about maximum distance if possible, if I don’t just drop>spam overcharge>detonate when I see the cleanse cool down timer.
I am 100% in favor of this thread being about the best practices with a FT kit and a comparison and contrast of play styles, but as someone who spends about 80% in grenades, I would not appreciate this degenerating into a wrench-measuring contest.
I go out of my way to make my runs as fun and wipe-free as possible, to that effect, I will gear specifically by path in dungeons, share MoB slaying potions, retrait if necessary, roll with as many specialized skills as requested or required, and even wear funny hats… but in the end, I am still primarily a grenade engineer.
The “projectile walls, regenerative skills, Protection, Aegis, and CC abilities of a Guardian” can be used to full effect on a dps spec guardian. All of those except for hard CC come from utility slots, which don’t force him to give up his greatsword, and the greatsword provides the best AOE pull in the game. An FT/EG engi is giving up a lot more damage that guardian is to provide support to the team.
What exactly am I giving up?
I do over 4000 damage a second when Acid Bomb is ticking. I fail to see how that is terrible damage?
“We are just as good a support class as Guardians are.” Gotta disagree with you there, at least in terms of PVE – stability and reflections are probably the strongest support in the game, and we don’t really have either. A juggernaut engi can be a decent anchor when no guardian is available, but I wouldn’t say a water field compares to reflects.
I agree that Guardians are better anchors because of Binding Blade + Ring of Warding, but Engineers actually have plenty of projectile reflects: Magnetic Shield, Air Blast, and Toss Elixir U.
The “projectile walls, regenerative skills, Protection, Aegis, and CC abilities of a Guardian” can be used to full effect on a dps spec guardian. All of those except for hard CC come from utility slots, which don’t force him to give up his greatsword, and the greatsword provides the best AOE pull in the game. An FT/EG engi is giving up a lot more damage that guardian is to provide support to the team.
What exactly am I giving up?
I do over 4000 damage a second when Acid Bomb is ticking. I fail to see how that is terrible damage?
“We are just as good a support class as Guardians are.” Gotta disagree with you there, at least in terms of PVE – stability and reflections are probably the strongest support in the game, and we don’t really have either. A juggernaut engi can be a decent anchor when no guardian is available, but I wouldn’t say a water field compares to reflects.
I agree that Guardians are better anchors because of Binding Blade + Ring of Warding, but Engineers actually have plenty of projectile reflects: Magnetic Shield, Air Blast, and Toss Elixir U.
I didn’t say terrible damage, did I? I just said giving up more damage than the guardian needs to. A guardian can be using is maximum dps weapon and still be using his support skills. Our maximum dps weapon is grenades, which you admitted. An engi is giving up on damage he could be doing (not doing none, not doing terrible amounts) the guardian is not, which is the difference.
I agree that we have a few, short reflects, but they are tiny compared to the up time a guardian has.
I don’t take issue with the FT/EG build, if you read further I support your build’s viability. I just don’t think we really compare to a guardian in terms of true support – their entire class enables it. We are more versatile, so when we do support it will naturally be not quite as optimized. We can still be support, even strong support, I just don’t want to say we are equal to a guardian in pve dungeons.
ya, but the guardian max dps weapon is not grenades.
it is actually comparable to the FT…
I use healing turret with grenade kit
ya, but the guardian max dps weapon is not grenades.
it is actually comparable to the FT…
From my quick test in HotM with an HGH juggernaut build, fire/strength/hoelbrek runes and a knights pendent, I was getting about 150-250 per hit on the large target golem with flame jet, for an average of about 2k for the 2.5 second duration, even with might stacks hovering around 15. For my guardian, even with no traits in any offence line and divinity runes, each auto attack was ~600/600/900 for the 1.5 second duration. If we include two more auto attacks to make 2.5 seconds, thats 3300 damage. That’s without crits or might stacks.
It’s not a perfect comparison, of course, but my impression is that gs on guardian does better dps than the FT – its no 100blades, but I think it is a significant amount.
that sounds about right, but, tbh, HGH spec is not the spec you ought to be using to test the “tanks” FT build.
0/30/20/20/0
Precise Sights, Fireforged, Jugg
Energized Armour, whatever
whatever, Deadly Mixture.
use toughness runes or might duration runes, battle sigil, soldier army w/knight jewel
drop napalm, net and healing turrets, detonate for area might after you ha e you full jugg stacks.
then test the dps.
You ought to be hitting for between 2500 and 3000 w/ every FT#1 cycle. Comparable to the dps guardian. Ofc it is not exactly the same.
Alright, lemme just put in some cents with regards to why taking FT is worthwhile from a damage perspective:
Let’s say you’re a min/maxer like me. You want the most damage possible, and for engineer, that means juggling as many low cooldown, high damage skills as possible. Blunderbuss, Shrapnel Grenade, Flame Blast, etcetera. Well, the simplest way to do that, is to do some simple finger gymnastics. We’re talking bronze league level Starcraft 2 here. Swap to Flamethrower, double tap 2, swap to grenade kit, blow your 4 and 2, swap to rifle, blow your 3 and 5, and heck, if you’re me? Swap to elixir gun, push 4 before you do any of this, then swap in mid-air to cancel the leap, and do all the aforementioned skills.
FT is worth it for the 2, the fire field, and the blind. The burn on your toolbelt is somewhat mediocre, but it has no cast time so there’s not really an excuse to not use it. The knockback is relevant on some mobs, or if you’re trying to bunch up stragglers against a wall for your dungeon speed clearing, while the rifle 4 can just hit one without knocking the whole group around (if the situation calls for it).
Yes, I’m saying an optimal setup for PvE should be running 4 kits. There’s other situations where I’d say otherwise, but after doing all the PvE content, here are the 2 that come to mind: A stunbreaker for Graveling Scavengers, and Elixir R for the Jade Maw if you’re under-geared AR-wise.
that sounds about right, but, tbh, HGH spec is not the spec you ought to be using to test the “tanks” FT build.
0/30/20/20/0
Precise Sights, Fireforged, Jugg
Energized Armour, whatever
whatever, Deadly Mixture.
use toughness runes or might duration runes, battle sigil, soldier army w/knight jeweldrop napalm, net and healing turrets, detonate for area might after you ha e you full jugg stacks.
then test the dps.
You ought to be hitting for between 2500 and 3000 w/ every FT#1 cycle. Comparable to the dps guardian. Ofc it is not exactly the same.
Its a few hundred less then base DPS of gs on a guardian with no boons and no crits, and no traits or gear that grants power/precision. With just a small investment into offense, the comparable 2.5 second auto-attack cycle easily hits 5-6k.
Greatsword has a an aeo blind and an aoe pull, a light combo field and a whirl. The FT has an aoe blind and an aoe push, plus a fire combo field and a dps (should be a blast finisher) skill. Fairly comparable weapons, but in terms of raw DPS the gs has a much bigger potential. I think FT/EG makes a great anchor support, don’t get me wrong – I still just think we don’t quite measure up to guardians in that specific role. We are a very close second, imho.
okay, let’s carry on with the extension of traits then,
a dps FT falls in to two specs:
0/30/0/20/20 and 20/30/0/30/0
the first gives you, with rampagers gear, strength sigil, and might runes, focus g on high crit rate (and 20% crit dmg), and astonishingly high, hard hitting crit rate.
the second is the tried and true Enhanced Performance/Incendiary Powder build.
Since the premise is that, specced for dps, a gs guardian is better than an ft engineer, then we ought to spec the ft for dps.
this is, admittedly and unfortunately, where the FT lags, not in dps, but in survivability; a dps ft is glass cannon. a dps guard has more innate defenses.
another thing to consider is that the ft is not a burst weapon (despite the oomf of Flame Blast), but rather sustained dps over time. it’s (almost) always the same
it just keeps burning; as someone mentioned earlier, the ft is melee – not in dmg – but in application, so missing and blocking are the only ways to mitigate it.
Yep, but the flame jet, for how is balanced, requires you to have sustained damage toward many enemies. Now, either you’re tanky, that means that your damage isn’t that good anyway, or you’re a dps spec, that means you won’t be able to actually survive toward that many enemies.
As i said above, risks outweight the rewards.
And i’ll repeat it another time, when you get more damage from retaliation than the damage you’re doing with your attack, something is clearly wrong.
But the ft tank spec both survives numerous opponents, and kills them.
if TTK is all you care about, by all means throw some nades, or SD burst.
but, using the ft is not a kit designed for lowest TTK possible. it is meant for tanking and crowd control, which it does very well, and any dps you have, mild mannered as it may seem, only adds to the dps of your group, which your ft skills ultimately buff.
you add to your group’s dps as an ft user, while tanking for them.
it is a different play style than just killing things, because you ought to be watching your team more than the opponents (player or npc)
And despite that, two thirds of the traits are located in a precision/condition damage tree, that by itself reduces your tanking capabilities, even if you get 200 toughness from the grandmaster trait; since by getting that, you’re already giving up on the stats you would actually need to tank.
It would be different if was, like, in the toughness/healing power tree or in the vitality/boon duration tree.
(edited by Manuhell.2759)
From my quick test in HotM with an HGH juggernaut build, fire/strength/hoelbrek runes and a knights pendent, I was getting about 150-250 per hit on the large target golem with flame jet, for an average of about 2k for the 2.5 second duration, even with might stacks hovering around 15.
For my guardian, even with no traits in any offence line and divinity runes, each auto attack was ~600/600/900 for the 1.5 second duration. If we include two more auto attacks to make 2.5 seconds, thats 3300 damage. That’s without crits or might stacks.
It’s not a perfect comparison, of course, but my impression is that gs on guardian does better dps than the FT – its no 100blades, but I think it is a significant amount.
Why are you comparing one class with Hoelbrak/Fire/Strength to one with Runes of Divinity? Obviously the setup with Divinity runes will contribute to more damage:
An additional 60 Power and 12% Critical Damage is a whole lot more than 105 Power or whatever you’re gaining in your Might stacks out of H/F/S versus non-Might Duration runes.
And despite that, two thirds of the traits are located in a precision/condition damage tree, that by itself reduces your tanking capabilities, even if you get 200 toughness from the grandmaster trait; since by getting that, you’re already giving up on the stats you would actually need to tank.
It would be different if was, like, in the toughness/healing power tree or in the vitality/boon duration tree.
The reason that Juggernaut is in the Precision tree is twofold;
Firstly, the Flamethrower is particularly efficient at proccing crits. This is the plainly obvious part, and this suggests the Flamethrower is a crit based damage weapon. What is not plainly obvious is that crits are not just about dealing damage. Neither are damage effects the only kinds of on crit effects we can get from sigils; health stealing, boon stealing, cleansing, conditions, might stacking, etc. Several of these options are very appealing to the tanking role. Damage based sigils, strength in particular, are nothing to sneeze at. You can stack might with strength and compensate for any lack of dps. It is for this reason, as well, that we get 6 stacks of might for free with the trait. 200 power, 200 (more) cond dmg. The weapon is set up in such a way that a deep Precision pool also bolsters your power with what amounts to 20 free points in the Explosives tree, which if you further spec in to, is still that much more to add to the mix.
Secondly, and similarly to the last point, the Toughness you gain is, in essence, a free 20 points in the Inventions tree. 200 toughness is a lot, for anyone, to tack on to their character. For the investment of 30 traits points, you get 200 power, 300 precision, 500 cond dmg, and 200 toughness.
No other trait in the game really does this, afaik.
Then, with the other two traits you can get in the tree, we turn our attention back once again to the crit rate, because we have Precise sights, 50% chance to vuln on crit. Now your weapon, regardless of damage output, is stacking dps buffs on enemies for your allies. With fireforged trigger it does so 20% faster.
With 30 trait points, I have given up nothing.
(edited by nakoda.4213)
The reason that Juggernaut is in the Precision tree is twofold;
Firstly, the Flamethrower is particularly efficient at proccing crits. This is the plainly obvious part, and this suggests the Flamethrower is a crit based damage weapon. What is not plainly obvious is that crits are not just about dealing damage. Neither are damage effects the only kinds of on crit effects we can get from sigils; health stealing, boon stealing, cleansing, conditions, might stacking, etc. Several of these options are very appealing to the tanking role.
And we can’t actually take advantage of those fast crits due of cooldowns placed almost on every on-crit effect, especially on foods and sigils.
Whileas retaliation fully work.
Basically, we’ve got just two traits to process some effects without cooldown. 30% chance on crit to do bleeding and 50% chance on crit to do vulnerability.
Grenades do both of them better, anyway, without even needing to crit.
Damage based sigils, strength in particular, are nothing to sneeze at. You can stack might with strength and compensate for any lack of dps. It is for this reason, as well, that we get 6 stacks of might for free with the trait. 200 power, 200 (more) cond dmg. The weapon is set up in such a way that a deep Precision pool also bolsters your power with what amounts to 20 free points in the Explosives tree, which if you further spec in to, is still that much more to add to the mix.
And to mantain them, you’ve got to stay on the flamethrower almost all the time, so it isn’t exactly free (especially since all the other traits also involve elixir gun). Also, as a boon, it is subject to every downside of it (like, you know, getting it stolen or cleansed).
And if you spend points on explosives, you would be better to directly use grenades to spread those effects.
Secondly, and similarly to the last point, the Toughness you gain is, in essence, a free 20 points in the Inventions tree. 200 toughness is a lot, for anyone, to tack on to their character. For the investment of 30 traits points, you get 200 power, 300 precision, 500 cond dmg, and 200 toughness.
No other trait in the game really does this, afaik.
The first part is incorrect, since you would also get healing power (that stat that would be helpful with the elixir gun, you know). Regarding the second part, how many stats actually useful for tanking are there? Just toughness.
That means we’ll have to spend points anyway to bolster our survivability and all that advantage in stats goes down the drain.
Also, even with all those stats, flame jet damage is still lackluster. Cause it is weak to begin with.
Then, with the other two traits you can get in the tree, we turn our attention back once again to the crit rate, because we have Precise sights, 50% chance to vuln on crit. Now your weapon, regardless of damage output, is stacking dps buffs on enemies for your allies. With fireforged trigger it does so 20% faster.
With 30 trait points, I have given up nothing.
And grenades do it better, without even needing to crit. From a safe zone. While doing more damage. Getting less damage from retaliation. Doing also more different conditions. Same for bleeding.
And fireforged trigger doesn’t actually matter in this case, flame jet has no recharge anyway.
Basically, you’re just illuding yourself with all the “tanky weapon” talk.
If they wanted it to be tanky, they would have given it protection instead of might (it didn’t gave might to start with, after all). And they wouldn’t have put it in a precision/condition damage tree.
This is simply a blunder of a weapon we’ve got after nerfs and changes that has lost any sense and role it had when it was designed first.
suit yourself.
Then, with the other two traits you can get in the tree, we turn our attention back once again to the crit rate, because we have Precise sights, 50% chance to vuln on crit. Now your weapon, regardless of damage output, is stacking dps buffs on enemies for your allies. With fireforged trigger it does so 20% faster.
With 30 trait points, I have given up nothing.
And grenades do it better, without even needing to crit. From a safe zone. While doing more damage. Getting less damage from retaliation. Doing also more different conditions. Same for bleeding.
And fireforged trigger doesn’t actually matter in this case, flame jet has no recharge anyway.
You may have Vulnerability, but you have no Fire field for stacking Might—which adds another significant chunk to your party’s DPS.
You have to use the Flamethrower or Bomb Kit, and the Flamethrower’s can be aimed, is wider, and lasts for a much longer duration than Fire Bomb.
Basically, you’re just illuding yourself with all the “tanky weapon” talk.
If they wanted it to be tanky, they would have given it protection instead of might (it didn’t gave might to start with, after all).
Engineers already have access to plenty of Protection with Protective Armor and Protective Shield, which even with 30 points in Firearms you have room to take on. I’ve been messing with nakoda’s sPvP build lately which runs a 0/30/20/20/0 trait distribution. I pretty much have permanent Protection with the assistance of Rune of the Forge. I’m just as durable a bunker as if I was running Elixir-Infused Bombs, and I have a much less telegraphed knockback in Air Blast compared to Big Ol’ Bomb.
So I disagree that Juggernaut needs to give Protection or that FT Engis are not “tanky” without it.
for added toughness, and some more protection, you can use 5/6 Earth runes, and 1x anything with toughness (I use engineer, cuz, hey, why not).
sacrifice 15% burn dura and a fire aura for 3 seconds prot every 30 seconds, 15% prot duration (vs 20) and an extra 25 toughness.
near perma protection is, essentially, priceless as a “melee tank” since you eat a lot of damage. we would be OP if we could group buff protection with this frequency.
BUT WE CAN’T SO WE AREN’T, MOVE ALONG ANET
^.^
Hammer Guardians can group buff Protection every few seconds, so I don’t see why it’d be overpowered.
gotta let them have something over us …
joking aside though, i would honestly think that to be able to be a walking buff bot with jugg as well would be OP, i would expect to have to spec differently to be able to apply powerful buffs like that, maybe an EG spec or whatever.
but … we can’t anyway so it’s all just day dreaming.
gotta let them have something over us …
joking aside though, i would honestly think that to be able to be a walking buff bot with jugg as well would be OP, i would expect to have to spec differently to be able to apply powerful buffs like that, maybe an EG spec or whatever.
but … we can’t anyway so it’s all just day dreaming.
I would say an FT/EG Engineer is precisely a “walking buff bot.”
I am consistently giving my group the means to stack Might through the roof while giving a little myself on top of Fury, Regeneration, and Retaliation to nearby allies. While also curing conditions and providing both regenerative and direct healing through Super Elixir and combo’d Area Heals (Regenerating Mist → Magnetic Shield/Acid Bomb on top of the Healing Turret self-combo).
I’d like it if we additionally gave Protection to our allies, but the Pistol + Shield with Healing Turret + FT/EG/Elixir U setup offers 2 Light fields (or 1 Light with 1 Smoke), a Fire field, two Water fields, two 20% Projectile finishers, one 100% Projectile finisher, and four Blast finishers.
I never feel like anyone is pulling my weight in a group. If anything it feels quite the opposite most often. I may not do as much damage as a Grenadier directly, but with all the Might and Fury I give everybody I don’t feel like dungeon runs are any slower than if I did.
But I guess I’m just a newbie who thinks Flame Jet is not as bad as people say it is, right?
stupid newb. :/
If I wanted to be a support build I would rather go with bomb kit and get a blast finisher and more combo fields. I just haven’t enjoyed a flamethrower build since they nerfed the kit refinement perk of having it cleanse a condition and spew aoe fire. Now it’s a fire shield which is so cool so now when someone attacks me I should want to pull out my flamethrower! It’s hard for me take the FT or the EG seriously anymore with what they did with kit refinement.
If I wanted to be a support build I would rather go with bomb kit and get a blast finisher and more combo fields. I just haven’t enjoyed a flamethrower build since they nerfed the kit refinement perk of having it cleanse a condition and spew aoe fire. Now it’s a fire shield which is so cool so now when someone attacks me I should want to pull out my flamethrower! It’s hard for me take the FT or the EG seriously anymore with what they did with kit refinement.
Meh. In group-oriented PvE I prefer Air Blast to Big Ol’ Bomb, which is infinitely more useful when soloing or doing sPvP.
Air Blast has half the cooldown and can be more properly timed as an interrupt given BoB’s significant detonation delay. Air Blast can also reflect projectiles and doesn’t send everybody every which way in a dungeon, which kind of flies in the face of the work of many Guardians using Binding Blade to “anchor” everything in place for the Elementalists and Warriors to burst DPS down in a cluster.
The Bomb Kit is good, but I retain the position that it’s best used when soloing or in PvP: Smoke field isn’t really all that great in PvE either, though I love it as an escape tool paired with Rocket Boots in WvW.
Engineers already have access to plenty of Protection with Protective Armor and Protective Shield, which even with 30 points in Firearms you have room to take on. I’ve been messing with nakoda’s sPvP build lately which runs a 0/30/20/20/0 trait distribution. I pretty much have permanent Protection with the assistance of Rune of the Forge. I’m just as durable a bunker as if I was running Elixir-Infused Bombs, and I have a much less telegraphed knockback in Air Blast compared to Big Ol’ Bomb.
So I disagree that Juggernaut needs to give Protection or that FT Engis are not “tanky” without it.
All of these effects aren’t directly controlled by us (they’re activated either by criticals or by disabling effects – and the critical one is 3s on a 20s cooldown). And as far as skills go, we can only get it randomly.
The only way to maintain that “perma-protection” by yourself would be to be constantly disabled by the enemies, basically. And you aren’t contributing much to the party, in that case.
Also, aside from protection, we lack reliable means of stability – well, that was the old effect of juggernaut, after all – so while we have got some good forms of control, we’re also very susceptible to it.
So…i still can’t see all that “tankiness” you’re both talking about. And neither i can see the flamethrower as a weapon designed for that purpose.
when you control your foes actions by physically placing them wheu want them, via interrupts or knockbacks or what have you, you are already tanking, in effect, because you are limiting your foes available actions.
perma protection is perma 33% dmg reduction from everything. you get prot when crit, when hit, and when disabled, always when you need it.
dodging, reflect, and crown control are how we tank, rather than sponging up damage, we, rather, avoid it all together.
The only way to maintain that “perma-protection” by yourself would be to be constantly disabled by the enemies, basically. And you aren’t contributing much to the party, in that case.
Also, aside from protection, we lack reliable means of stability – well, that was the old effect of juggernaut, after all – so while we have got some good forms of control, we’re also very susceptible to it.
So…i still can’t see all that “tankiness” you’re both talking about. And neither i can see the flamethrower as a weapon designed for that purpose.
Why is Stability such a make-or-break detail for you guys? I don’t feel like I’m getting constantly knocked down in PvE.
in fact, FT users are the ones doing the knocking and downing.
if you want free stomps, take elixir S.
when you control your foes actions by physically placing them wheu want them, via interrupts or knockbacks or what have you, you are already tanking, in effect, because you are limiting your foes available actions.
perma protection is perma 33% dmg reduction from everything. you get prot when crit, when hit, and when disabled, always when you need it.
dodging, reflect, and crown control are how we tank, rather than sponging up damage, we, rather, avoid it all together.
The flamethrower by itself offers a single skill to either reflect or do crowd control, though. That, and an area blind (that took the place of another control skill).
In pve it is useless anyway, due to defiant stacks.
And in pvp people often have stability – that one boon we haven’t got reliable access too (well, we had that with juggernaut) that negates crowd control.
Even the rifle is better in that regard, then. At least it can immobilize. And it does knockback as well. Yet you wouldn’t call it “a tanky weapon”.
And regarding stability, it depends on what do you do in pve. When you get dungeons where most of the enemies have knockback skills, i would like to be able to do something instead of getting bounced like a ball (like in Caduceus’ manor). Cause you can’t dodge every couple seconds, anyway.
Especially since we had a reliable mean of getting stability. Before they changed it, without putting it somewhere else.
Edit: and FT users are knocked and downed exactly like anyone else, anyway. Again, after they changed juggernaut.
you make it sound like once you spec for the FT the only skills you get are FT skills.
what about rifle, net turret, pistols, shield, tool kit, thumper turret, bomb kit, pbr, and any of the other skills we can equip and frenetically swap to and access during combat?
engineers are not like any other class that relies on one main set of skills with supplementary utilities, we come packed with myriad primary skills to utilize.
I think what the opening post and most of the FT detractors are getting at is that Flamethrower as it stands is in a pretty strange place right now. It is unreliable at getting through either Condition based, or Power based damage. This applies to PVE, PVP and WVW. I am not saying by any means that FT is a bad kit, just that the typical player expectation of the FT is often much higher than the actual performance.
First let’s look at the Traits.
For Flamethrower you have a pretty significant GM trait in the Firearms Tree, that grants Precision and Condition damage, and that is Juggernaut.
I’ll continue in another post for message length.
So: for Condition damage:
You could use Flamethrower in theory to run a crit-proc condition build given that Firearms gives Condition damage and Precision, but you’d run into several problems, as outlined below.
Let’s move on to Power Damage.
Here is where FT is more clear in its purpose. The Traits for FT and the recent changes to FT1 clearly predispose it to Power damage over Condition damage
So all this would be fine and dandy until you realise the following:
So I think that Auto for Auto, FT is inferior to Rifle’s Hip shot, and I think a previous poster has also derived an inferior FT power scaling compared to Grenade Kit 1.
So where does the FT stand? It can’t do condition damage, and it can’t keep up with Power damage. This is where you look at FT3, 4, and 5. All of them are crowd control abilities (Yes, even FT4, because opponents in WvW still avoid it, even if its damage is negligible).
FT excels in Control. The PBAoE Blind can be used as a soft-stunbreak. The FT4 can be placed at your feet and threaten foes in melee. and the FT3 is a very strong pushback that also destroys projectiles.
But I think nakoda is better qualified for talking about FT control.
Just don’t slot FT and expect it to do damage.
you make it sound like once you spec for the FT the only skills you get are FT skills.
what about rifle, net turret, pistols, shield, tool kit, thumper turret, bomb kit, pbr, and any of the other skills we can equip and frenetically swap to and access during combat?
engineers are not like any other class that relies on one main set of skills with supplementary utilities, we come packed with myriad primary skills to utilize.
Well, Juggernaut requires you to use the flamethrower consistently, even just for building up and maintaining might stacks. It didn’t happen with the old juggernaut (you got stability immediatly, and nothing else), but as the trait is now, you’re supposed to mostly stay in it. You would be wasting points otherwise.
Anyway, seems like MonMalthias has got to the point quite well.
Flamethrower is quite in a strange place.
Imho, it is due of the various changes it has got during time, that deprived it of its identity. Devs should see exactly what they think the flamethrower is supposed to do now and, eventually, change the traits’ location to better suit it.
So all this would be fine and dandy until you realise the following:
- The 10x pulses have a 0.14 scaling over 2.25 seconds. You might do the calculation and think, hey, 1.4 is pretty strong. So you can then normalise this to 0.62 per second. But then you can compare this to Hip Shot which has a 0.65 second scaling for a 0.75 second attack – which normalises to 0.86 per second, and Pierces – for a qualitative equivalence of hitting up to 5 enemies stacked up. FT has a target limit of 3 but can (in theory) hit up to 30 targets due to having 10 pulses. Even then, Hip shot isn’t far behind because your damage is more focused. As far as Single Target damage goes, however, if you’re doing auto attacks, you may as well use Rifle over FT.
- Deadly Mixture contributes 15% damage. 1.15*0.62 will yield you 0.713 Power scaling, which is getting closer, but not quite there.
- But wait, you say. If the Target is Burning, don’t I get the 10% damage boost?
Well, yes. But 0.62 Power Scaling per second + 15% + 10% for the Burning boost still only maximises at 0.775 – lower than the 0.86 Power Scaling for Rifle Hip shot. This is also assuming you can keep the target Burning 100%. Why settle for a lower power scaling, and a conditional damage boost?- Juggernaut would seem to be the saving grace of the FT, giving 7 stacks of Might for a whopping extra 259 Power before Boon Duration. So you might think, hey, I could use that to make up for bad Power Scaling.
- This is until you realise that you can get in 3-4 Rifle Auto attacks before your 7 Might stacks start to tick down. With Boon Duration, you can get in even more. So your Might Stacking is better used to empower your Rifle Hip Shot, if you can stand the micromanagement
And what about the heightened potency of Sigil of Strength with the Flamethrower versus the Rifle because of the difference in attack speed? And, by extension, what about Precise Sights and Sharpshooter? The Flamethrower doubles if not triples the attack speed of the Rifle, meaning you’re having double the chance to proc additional Bleed or Vulnerability stacks. Did you consider this in your calculations?
Or how about what I mentioned earlier: Using two Pistols or a Pistol/Shield combination with your FT setup so that you have two sigils to work with rather than just one. Does the Rifle’ Hip Shot still outdo it? Having Sigil of Strength + Sigil of Bloodlust or Sigil of Strength + Sigil of Force is a whole lot better than having one of those options at once.
My final question: Switching back and forth between the Rifle and Flamethrower—you really think it’s worth it buffing Hip Shot while you’re weakening your Flame Blast and Acid Bomb? By lowering your Might stacks I think you’re hurting yourself more than helping. The FT is best used equipped as much as possible. Flame Blast is just used too often to goof around with the Rifle and trash your Might stacks IMHO.
Just as a final word: I don’t think +Damage traits key into Power scaling. I believe Power and Weapon Damage are accumulated together with Armor … and then the +Damage is added to it similar to Crit Damage.
(edited by Phineas Poe.3018)
In CoE, I was easily hitting for 12k with it on both parts, on a < 1 second cast time point blank.
Hahaha let’s get real. A pure berserker with all traits for flamethrower + 25 stacks of might + Omnomberry bar + potion of slaying a certain creature wouldn’t pass 6000….
Yep that’s honest for yea. Totally agree that 12k is a total fabrication!
you make it sound like once you spec for the FT the only skills you get are FT skills.
what about rifle, net turret, pistols, shield, tool kit, thumper turret, bomb kit, pbr, and any of the other skills we can equip and frenetically swap to and access during combat?
engineers are not like any other class that relies on one main set of skills with supplementary utilities, we come packed with myriad primary skills to utilize.
however we are missing the traits that the other two adventurer classes have almost identical in every slot.
I’m serious go look at the traitlines for DPS for thieves and rangers, they are identical bonuses for using basic skills or abilities of the class. This doesn’t happen in the engineer and the bonuses we do have are tiny or non-existant. (10% to damage, 10% to damage, 20% to damage after 50% hitpoints, 10% to crit that’s actually useful)
Meanwhile thieves have the options of combining using signets poisons AND stealing to give themselves boons fleshing out the class, Rangers have similar options.
We’re also locked into certain skill builds because whole classes of abilities don’t offer boons at all, like gadgets for example. Like it or not they have some overhauling to do to this class (mainly matching our trait bonuses to what thieves and rangers already take for granted) and it’s not going to get done if people keep spreading the nonsense that somehow engineers are fine.
(edited by tigirius.9014)
@Phineas Poe:
I’ll be honest with you; I have and always had run a Multikit Engineer. So I’m used to swapping kits all the time. And herein lies my bias: Juggernaut encourages me to stay in FT, but my instinct is always to swap away after 2-3 spells. You may have also noticed that I play Elementalist in my signature. So it is safe to say that I am not the best person to talk about FT; playing as if I am staying in that one kit for extended periods of time.
If I slot FT, it is for the control. PBAoE Blind, AOE knockback/projectile destruction and Fire Wall is very handsome. Running P/S, or even Rifle, along with Med Kit, EG, and Grenades, it is impossible to stay in one kit as it will destroy my survivability and my DPS.
You mention Sigil of Strength, which is very much a strong Flamethrower Sigil; although if you want strong crit procs, you really can’t go past Sigil of Fire. I’ll be honest, I don’t play with Sigil of Strength. According to your own guide on FT and EG Strength yields 7 stacks of Might at 45% Boon Duration; whilst Battle would average out about 9.
Given the 10x pulse nature of Strength, then absolutely, FT would be the auto to go for as it would be ideal to proc Strength on ICD. I run Battle, and always have, even when I was running FT Juggernaut. So my Might stacks are slow to build up, but I absolutely require them to come off slowly so I have that free time to spam skills.
You mention “Weakening your Flame Blast or Acid Bomb” in the same vein. Again, I would not be weakening anything if I swap out. Sigil of Battle gives me the time I need to swap to those skills, use them so they do damage at that specific level of Might, then swap back. This was true even when I was playing FT Juggernaut with Sigil of Battle.
With regards to the Double Sigil thing, yes. I myself currently run with P/S due to it’s utility and extra slot. You mention stacking Sigils, however, and swapping weapons at maximum charge. That can also be done with Rifle. I personally prefer running Rifle with FT because when I run Juggernaut FT, I run Sitting Duck and Net Turret to even approach Vulnerability parity with Grenadier builds.
Ultimately our argument comes down to playstyle. You want to run FT like it was designed; using the auto attack to maximise Crit-proc. If you’d read the earlier post on Conditions of the Flamethrower, you’ll have noticed that I mentioned Precise Sights only giving ~4-5 stacks of Vulnerability.
Compare this with the easy 25 stacks on enemy players in WVW and PVE enemies below Champion level, and 12-13 on Champions and Legendaries, without taking Precise Sights at all thanks to Grenadier. If you want Vuln Stacking, you won’t find it with the FT autoattack’s crit proc. You will need Sitting Duck and Rifle/Net turret for something approaching parity; and even then, you’re burning cooldowns whilst the Grenadier is simply burning his auto.
Like I said, FT is in a strange place right now. The way I play it is for its control, as a supplementation to a Multikit build. Below I’ve outlined some of the issues I have with the kit as a primary weapon; although I’m sure most of it has been said already by previous posters.
So yes, FT does have issues that hold it back from parity with GK or BK. To say so otherwise would be patently untrue.
(edited by MonMalthias.4763)
re: pvp:
also consider the mindset of your opponents.
as SOON as you start spreading fire, you become a focus target. every time, without fail.
“oh kitten, fire, put it out”
what entices me to stay in the kit is to have the extra toughness to kite some opponents around while i can still CC them with nets and air blasts, swap to my rifle for net shot, use jump shot to gain ground (for or against), or whatever.
I have never died simply because of retaliation or confusion. not unless I was a kitten no offense, but if retaliation is an issue for you, then the FT is not your weapon. you must learn to play and be aware of your opponents boons and be prepared to stop attacking or switch targets.
retaliation/confusion is the paper to our rock. you have to get used to this.
the FT is not about making gap closers, it is about building gaps.
- a ranger firing pot shots at you? go chase the bugger and make him hate his life. he will stop, and you will win. just chase him, try it. i have never found myself lacking in abilities to pin a foe down with cc such that they outpace me unless everything i have is on cooldown (for at most 8 seconds for net shot).
- and still, people want slower movement speed and stability back with jugg.
- should not, then, your gap closers be some other skill or utility? oh, we lack those too? that’s too bad, because that means it is an engie problem and not an FT problem.
i’d like 4k power, 4k armour, 100% crit, 50k hp, perma swift, stability, protection, and retaliation too …
…
(edited by nakoda.4213)
You mention “Weakening your Flame Blast or Acid Bomb” in the same vein. Again, I would not be weakening anything if I swap out. Sigil of Battle gives me the time I need to swap to those skills, use them so they do damage at that specific level of Might, then swap back. This was true even when I was playing FT Juggernaut with Sigil of Battle.
Well, as you already admitted, it also takes twice as long to get reasonable stacks out of Battle. You get a stack of Might every 2 seconds from the Flamethrower with Sigil of Strength. That’s 5 every 10 seconds; you only get 3 in that time with Battle.
With regards to the Double Sigil thing, yes. I myself currently run with P/S due to it’s utility and extra slot. You mention stacking Sigils, however, and swapping weapons at maximum charge. That can also be done with Rifle. I personally prefer running Rifle with FT because when I run Juggernaut FT, I run Sitting Duck and Net Turret to even approach Vulnerability parity with Grenadier builds.
It can be done with the Rifle, but you cannot stack your Bloodlust to 25 while also getting the benefit of extra Might with a second sigil. It just doesn’t work as efficiently.
Ultimately our argument comes down to playstyle. You want to run FT like it was designed; using the auto attack to maximise Crit-proc. If you’d read the earlier post on Conditions of the Flamethrower, you’ll have noticed that I mentioned Precise Sights only giving ~4-5 stacks of Vulnerability.
Compare this with the easy 25 stacks on enemy players in WVW and PVE enemies below Champion level, and 12-13 on Champions and Legendaries, without taking Precise Sights at all thanks to Grenadier. If you want Vuln Stacking, you won’t find it with the FT autoattack’s crit proc. You will need Sitting Duck and Rifle/Net turret for something approaching parity; and even then, you’re burning cooldowns whilst the Grenadier is simply burning his auto.
Okay, but the comparison is not about the Flamethrower versus the Grenade Kit. It’s about Flame Jet versus Hip Shot. Regardless of how much better the Grenade Kit is at stacking Vulnerability and Bleeds than the Flamethrower, Flame Jet is still better than Hip Shot. There’s absolutely no reason to swap to the Rifle, least of all for damage purposes.
- FT isn’t in a bad place, but the Auto attack really needs that extra something, like Burning on First pulse, or upping individual pulses damage whilst only pulsing for 5-8 so we don’t kill ourselves with Retaliation. It’s got acceptable DPS, but you’d be patently wrong to say it has parity with Grenades or Bombs; or the kiting ability with Grenades or Bombs.
1. It does have parity because (a) using the Bomb Kit in many situations is instant death and (b) there’s things you can do with the Flamethrower that you can’t do with the Grenade Kit.
2. I don’t recall saying anything about “kiting” ability.
- As a Mid-range kit, there are no gap closers or openers that come with it, nor is there a reliable anti-kiting tool unlike Freeze Grenade and Glue Bomb.
How is Air Blast not a gap creator?
- Flame Blast is tasty damage, but just like Elementalist Shatterstone, it precludes you from using any other abilities until it can detonate.
It still does more damage than most other skills we have.
- Napalm is technically a very handsome Fire Field, but no FT skills or the Napalm skill itself can induce a foe to stay in it.
I don’t see why this matters. The Fire field is best used to stack Might. Doesn’t really matter if a foe is standing in it or not.
- As an FT engineer, you undertake significant risk facing true Melee foes that can bend you over their knee once your other CCs are on CD. High mobility classes like Ranger or Thief can elude your auto attack nigh on forever.
Um, really? I eat Thieves for breakfast. Melee classes are probably the easiest people for me to deal with. Retaliation hurts, but unless they’re using the Greatsword they’re not consistently applying it, and Throw Mine removes boons on a 14 second cooldown.
- FT isn’t in a bad place, but the Auto attack really needs that extra something, like Burning on First pulse, or upping individual pulses damage whilst only pulsing for 5-8 so we don’t kill ourselves with Retaliation. It’s got acceptable DPS, but you’d be patently wrong to say it has parity with Grenades or Bombs; or the kiting ability with Grenades or Bombs.
- As a Mid-range kit, there are no gap closers or openers that come with it, nor is there a reliable anti-kiting tool unlike Freeze Grenade and Glue Bomb.
If they:
made #2 a blast finisher
made #1 apply .5seconds of cripple every other tick (or something less gimmicky that makes the cripple last slightly less than the duration of the flame channel)
The kit would be just about perfect, imo.
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