Guild Wars 2

I’ve mostly played Ele and Guard in WvW. Every now and then I get bored and want to switch it up a bit.

I checked into MetaBattle and that website just sucks for build ideas. Certainly there is more than just a single scrapper build for WvW?

Anyway, last night I played a couple hours as a P/P condi scrapper with gyros (still don’t quite get the elite stealth gyro since it does not follow well at all). I started examining my the build a bit and saw a Grand Master trait which gives stability and might when using a Flamethrower — that seems sick so is there a viable WvW flamethrower build?

Part of me thinks it would be possible to make a front line flamethrower Engi. I can’t figure out if that would be condi or power though. Strangely enough, the flamethrower seems pitifully weak at generating burns.

Flamethrower can be really good but it is a kit in which you can not camp in. It is effective only in a condition setup ( rabid+ dire or trabalizer or viper+ rabid ). I play with the same build i use in spvp ( classic ft, toolkit , elixir S build that you find in metabattle ) . I use FT for its toolbet skill and now flamejet is quite strong if your opponent has burning. In my opinion it is a good setup for roaming. I find it good in a condition setup , not in power . it is different from guardian burning becouse with engi you use many more conditions for covering burning. it is not probably strong as meta scrapper but it is much more fun to play .

Flamethrower’s burns come only with skill 4 (the line of fire) – on static enemies, and tool belt skill. Otherwise, it’s terrible for zerg play – each damage tick from auto triggers retaliation damage. So it’s 5 tick * 300 dmg * amount of max enemies you can hit (I think it’s 3?).
Tl;dr flamethrower is a deathwish because of retaliation.

Engi has little place in zergs anyway. Retal and projectile hate everywhere around make mortar and granades useless, we are pretty egoistic in case of boonshare, AoE-healing is quite good but can’t compare to Ele’s. Only thing we are really good at is destroying siege that are sometimes too far away for meteor shower. Some guilds are recruiting scrappers, I believe for backline-damage and steath gyro, but it’s basically roaming.

juno.1840:

Strangely enough, the flamethrower seems pitifully weak at generating burns.

Want a burning flamethrower? Make a guardian and use staff.

Well if arenanet follows up on this “purity of purpose” nonsense perhaps they will make FT a real kit like 3 attackchain auto change #2 to a leap make #3 a blastfinisher and make 5# a smokefield. there you go, now you know why you bring FT. Right now use it in a condibuild but not for whole thing only for the “F” ability and blind/knockback

, this build is pretty interesting, you end up camping FT the majority of times. It’s probably not optimal, but it’s a fun build which is not useless. You might want to switch some parts around, because runes of leadership…

PierPiero.9142:

Flamethrower can be really good but it is a kit in which you can not camp in. It is effective only in a condition setup ( rabid+ dire or trabalizer or viper+ rabid ). I play with the same build i use in spvp ( classic ft, toolkit , elixir S build that you find in metabattle ) . I use FT for its toolbet skill and now flamejet is quite strong if your opponent has burning. In my opinion it is a good setup for roaming. I find it good in a condition setup , not in power . it is different from guardian burning becouse with engi you use many more conditions for covering burning. it is not probably strong as meta scrapper but it is much more fun to play .

Problem is that when its effective in a condition build, you kitten either the flamethrower or your condition damage because its either juggernaut or incendiary powder.

Dawdler.8521:

Problem is that when its effective in a condition build, you kitten either the flamethrower or your condition damage because its either juggernaut or incendiary powder.

Might is not that usefull in a condition build … IP is much more important imho so i have no doubt on what to chose. Standard condi engi build is based on damage stacked by pistol 4 and IP and bleeding from autoattacks. Other condiotions help and are a good coverage but the burst come from these 2 .

PierPiero.9142:

Dawdler.8521:

Problem is that when its effective in a condition build, you kitten either the flamethrower or your condition damage because its either juggernaut or incendiary powder.

Might is not that usefull in a condition build … IP is much more important imho so i have no doubt on what to chose. Standard condi engi build is based on damage stacked by pistol 4 and IP and bleeding from autoattacks. Other condiotions help and are a good coverage but the burst come from these 2 .

Well maybe I should have said “effective”. Thats exactly what I meant. To fully use the ft, you cant fully spec condi. Incendiary is a given.

Only if IP was aoe and not grandmaster trait.

Stability in wvw is important though.

FT can work well as power or condition (best for zerging and roaming respectively). It’s main issue in zerging is retaliation, which is dangerous enough to drive it out. Flame Legion runes are a good option with power FT and might stacking is pretty self explanatory.

Its quite useful on condi builds if you trade it for rocket boots.
The toolbelt is better than RB and offers a big condi burst.
The auto-attack can be used to quickly clear camps too.

Full zerk flamethrower would be pretty good if we had stances and some protection against retaliation.
Imagine a zerg of flamethrower engis: stack some quickness and super speed then roll over everything.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Stability in wvw is important though.

FT can work well as power or condition (best for zerging and roaming respectively). It’s main issue in zerging is retaliation, which is dangerous enough to drive it out. Flame Legion runes are a good option with power FT and might stacking is pretty self explanatory.

In a power setup i find ft a terrible kit. Nades or bombs are much better for a power setup. Taking a setup with power and condi togegher ( sinister or viper) makes you really squishy so it is really hard to use it . I want to see you to kill someone not brainless in 1vs 1 with a power setup and flamethrowers.. i find it really hard. I don’t like zerker engineer becouse i don’t think that there are really viable builds. SD or rifle based build with full berserker are quite weak against strong people and also with hammer i think that the best setup remain marauder or paladin but ft damage in power is quite bad

PierPiero.9142:

Ghotistyx.6942:

Stability in wvw is important though.

FT can work well as power or condition (best for zerging and roaming respectively). It’s main issue in zerging is retaliation, which is dangerous enough to drive it out. Flame Legion runes are a good option with power FT and might stacking is pretty self explanatory.

In a power setup i find ft a terrible kit. Nades or bombs are much better for a power setup. Taking a setup with power and condi togegher ( sinister or viper) makes you really squishy so it is really hard to use it . I want to see you to kill someone not brainless in 1vs 1 with a power setup and flamethrowers.. i find it really hard. I don’t like zerker engineer becouse i don’t think that there are really viable builds. SD or rifle based build with full berserker are quite weak against strong people and also with hammer i think that the best setup remain marauder or paladin but ft damage in power is quite bad

PierPiero.9142:

I want to see you to kill someone not brainless in 1vs1

Ghotistyx.6942:

It’s main issue in zerging

I think it’s more trouble than it’s worth.

It can be good in condi builds for the burst via toolbelt. There’s little point in taking juggernaut, because you’d kitten your burning by the lack of incendiary powder anyways.

In zergs, FT is a poor idea because your autoattack is weak and subject to retaliation— and juggernaut requires you to camp FT, which sorta means you have periods of not being able to do anything. All you really have is the 2,3, and 5 skills. Also, you’d have to take firearms which is fairly mediocre in large scale fights and you miss out on either inventions/alchemy/scrapper which makes survival take a hit. Plus any condi you do probably won’t matter due to the large amount of cleanse/resistance out there.

It’s manageable but at the same time, you probably aren’t contributing that much compared to others. Maybe: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFASnUUB1ahFpCuoCEqil7ii+2b9aX8g6hQEsBjwAA-TFiFABIp8IhHAA66AA4CAUlSQjUiRo6Pqv/QAAEADdoDdoDdoJAIG-w

Flamethrower in WvW is fun for hiding safely behind a door to attack the zerg, but Retal will kill you in literally seconds.

Answer: flamethrower is bad against any player in any pvp gamemode.

flamethrower is an integral part of condi scrapper… the burns are so strong…

problem is its an offmeta build. its fine and competitive and wins some of the meta matchups (different ones than power scrapper), but its not as generally survivable as power scrapper and has more gaps in its abilities. you can catch people by surprise once, and theyll scream AIDS CANCER EBOLA at you, but a smart player will prolly be able to avoid or nullify your damage since most elite specs are equipped to handle repeatedly refreshed burns or insufficiently covered damage condis, and then the issue becomes your own lack of sustain.

but its fun. i prefer it in wvw over power. but in pvp power is better.

insanemaniac.2456:

f
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but its fun. i prefer it in wvw over power. but in pvp power is better.

But condi pistol pistol is much more fun in pvp also than boring hammer scrapper

PierPiero.9142:

insanemaniac.2456:

f
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but its fun. i prefer it in wvw over power. but in pvp power is better.

But condi pistol pistol is much more fun in pvp also than boring hammer scrapper

yeah if sniping an opponent gets you goin go for it, but you wont win as many matches and in the end winning matches is what does it for most pvpers

The game has changed so much since FT was designed (like grenades vs projectile hate, retal, cc vs stab, etc.) and some of its synergies have been lost.

For example, Previously, it was fine to take Flamethrower as a power build because you would spec into the 1st traitline, which gave bonuses to Condi Duration and Power. This was great for FT because Burn was a non-stacking condi and having high burn uptime was pretty good. The Power boost gave you good damage on the rest of FT’s skills.

with the release of HoT flamethrower got about 5 new synergies and it hasnt lost any of them in the past year

and its still fine to take in a power build, but the build is focused on being easy to play while teaching the player something about how traits can function together and compound upon themselves to make you stronger, not on being high dps… which means its best in open world pve, not an environment with smart enemies.

back around vanilla release it was only good in pvp scenarios because stability was op and it gave on demand stability. after juggernaut was nerfed to only provide might it was a noob trap until HoT.

insanemaniac.2456:

back around vanilla release it was only good in pvp scenarios because stability was op and it gave on demand stability. after juggernaut was nerfed to only provide might it was a noob trap until HoT.

Apparently Teldo didn’t get your message whilst he was winning tournies that flamethrower was a “noob trap” after the juggernaut nerf.

zinkz.7045:

insanemaniac.2456:

back around vanilla release it was only good in pvp scenarios because stability was op and it gave on demand stability. after juggernaut was nerfed to only provide might it was a noob trap until HoT.

Apparently Teldo didn’t get your message whilst he was winning tournies that flamethrower was a “noob trap” after the juggernaut nerf.

i seem to recall he was huge on eg/ft but nerf after nerf pushed him to something like bomb/tk/eg.

insanemaniac.2456:

zinkz.7045:

insanemaniac.2456:

back around vanilla release it was only good in pvp scenarios because stability was op and it gave on demand stability. after juggernaut was nerfed to only provide might it was a noob trap until HoT.

Apparently Teldo didn’t get your message whilst he was winning tournies that flamethrower was a “noob trap” after the juggernaut nerf.

i seem to recall he was huge on eg/ft but nerf after nerf pushed him to something like bomb/tk/eg.

I never tried but i think that a build with ft. eg and elixir S now could be really fun for spvp . You lose toolblock but you gain a stun break, eg 4 … and something new to play. I want to try it