Guild Wars 2

So, now we know. I actually don’t mind these buffs.

Flame Jet 33% dmg increase.
Flame Blast is blast finisher.
Napalm damages every pulse.

I popped that into the spreadsheet and it actually comes out pretty favorable for FT. You lose the massive vuln stack (you only get about 5ish with Precise Sights) but gain extra might and the base DPS is actually pretty close to bombs and grenades (better than bombs overall, better than grenades if you don’t count bleed). If your party isn’t capped on either, FT probably actually deals better damage in a pug.

Flame Blast (6 second CD) becoming a blast finisher is insane… I’m sure it’ll find its way into PvE builds just because of that.

4 and 3/4 second CD if you traited for fireforged trigger.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I popped that into the spreadsheet and it actually comes out pretty favorable for FT. You lose the massive vuln stack (you only get about 5ish with Precise Sights) but gain extra might and the base DPS is actually pretty close to bombs and grenades (better than bombs overall, better than grenades if you don’t count bleed). If your party isn’t capped on either, FT probably actually deals better damage in a pug.

I’m not really sure how FT is better than bombs in your calculation.

With the new dmg increase Flame Jet would have a power coefficient of 1,995 spread over 2.57 seconds, Flame Blast has a combined coefficient of 2.5 (assuming you hit all targets with the ball before exploding it) with a cast time of approximately 0.5 sec (just ignoring the travel time for now) and a cooldown of 4.8 seconds with Fireforged trigger.

So we have a combined power coefficient of 6.49 over 5.64 seconds or 1.15 per second (1 Blast after every second Jet). With the 10% bonus damage to burning targets this is increased to 1.265 per second

Bomb has a power coefficient of 1.25 over 0.92 seconds or 1.36 per second.

If we add Explosive Powder and Deadly Mixture to the calculation it results in 1.45five (thank you kitten filter) for FT and 1.496 for the Bomb. Pretty close to Bomb but you have to give up 100 precision or power for it.

Also, Bomb hits up to 5 targets while Jet only 3, within a comparable area (assuming a 120° cone for Jet) and FT is not able to keep up permanent burning on multiple targets by itself.

In my opinion this change is a good buff for FT that will make it useful, especially for fights where you don’t want to get too close, but Bomb Kit will remain the best kit for pure direct damage and Grenade Kit the best for vulnerability and bleed stacking along with strong direct damage.

It will all depends on how high those napalm tick will be.

Imo Napalm’s area has the wrong shape to be counted on for reliable damage, same as the damage from Flame Blast passing through targets. Might work for perfect stacks against a wall or a single immobile target.

welp, I can already imagine a BK / FT build that would buff 15 stacks of might permanently for the whole group. Which would mean that you cap might on yourself permanently even without runes of strength. BK with self-sufficient might-capping… and for such a build you would not even have to sacrifice any precision or power since you take the FT as blast-tool only. You still could bring nades as well…

I get a dps-kitten right now.

How do we know Napalm will do decent damage? Maybe it’ll just be like the Elementalist leaps…

Mork vom Ork.2598:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I popped that into the spreadsheet and it actually comes out pretty favorable for FT. You lose the massive vuln stack (you only get about 5ish with Precise Sights) but gain extra might and the base DPS is actually pretty close to bombs and grenades (better than bombs overall, better than grenades if you don’t count bleed). If your party isn’t capped on either, FT probably actually deals better damage in a pug.

I’m not really sure how FT is better than bombs in your calculation.

With the new dmg increase Flame Jet would have a power coefficient of 1,995 spread over 2.57 seconds, Flame Blast has a combined coefficient of 2.5 (assuming you hit all targets with the ball before exploding it) with a cast time of approximately 0.5 sec (just ignoring the travel time for now) and a cooldown of 4.8 seconds with Fireforged trigger.

So we have a combined power coefficient of 6.49 over 5.64 seconds or 1.15 per second (1 Blast after every second Jet). With the 10% bonus damage to burning targets this is increased to 1.265 per second

Bomb has a power coefficient of 1.25 over 0.92 seconds or 1.36 per second.

If we add Explosive Powder and Deadly Mixture to the calculation it results in 1.45five (thank you kitten filter) for FT and 1.496 for the Bomb. Pretty close to Bomb but you have to give up 100 precision or power for it.

Also, Bomb hits up to 5 targets while Jet only 3, within a comparable area (assuming a 120° cone for Jet) and FT is not able to keep up permanent burning on multiple targets by itself.

In my opinion this change is a good buff for FT that will make it useful, especially for fights where you don’t want to get too close, but Bomb Kit will remain the best kit for pure direct damage and Grenade Kit the best for vulnerability and bleed stacking along with strong direct damage.

Does this count any traits? I think if you’re using either kit you’re also using the relevant traits for it, and the traits for FT boost its damage more than any trait can for the bomb kit. That wasn’t worded very well, but my point is that Juggernaut, Fireforged Trigger, and Deadly Mixture do far more for the FT than any Bomb Kit traits do for the BK. Juggernaut alone gives a perma 200-300 power for the FT which makes up for the points you lose in Explosives and then some.

Adamantium.3682:

Does this count any traits? I think if you’re using either kit you’re also using the relevant traits for it, and the traits for FT boost its damage more than any trait can for the bomb kit. That wasn’t worded very well, but my point is that Juggernaut, Fireforged Trigger, and Deadly Mixture do far more for the FT than any Bomb Kit traits do for the BK. Juggernaut alone gives a perma 200-300 power for the FT which makes up for the points you lose in Explosives and then some.

If you read my post carefully you’ll see that I have already counted in all traits for the FT except Juggernaut. The reason I left it out is that in a group setting it is a smaller potential damage increase than Precise Sights or Modified Ammunition.

With Strength runes and 4 points in Alchemy Juggernaut gives you 8 stacks of Might equalling 280 power. Minus the 100 power you lose from the Explosive tree this is an advantage of 180 power over a Bomb build.

With Berserker armor, group buffs, food and full Might stacks your total power easily ends up in the 3500-4000 range, where 180 power equals approximately 5% of your damage.

Modified Ammunition will give you 2% for every condition on your enemy, so 3 conditions (easily done with just vulnerability, burning and bleed) will already be stronger than Juggernaut.

Precise Sights will easily give 5-6 stacks of vulnerability which equals Juggernaut for you but has the advantage of also increasing damage for all party members.

If you consider that swapping to Rifle for Blunderbuss / Jump Shot will lose you some of those 8 Might stacks and that it is far easier to cap Might than Vulnerability in a group setting, Juggernaut looks even worse. It is a nice trait for solo play or to add some toughness to a fragile Zerker, but in group play it is a potential damage loss.

Maybe we ckittene Skale Venom for vulnerability instead traits

Rozbuska.5263:

Maybe we ckittene Skale Venom for vulnerability instead traits

Only in places where a slaying potion is not available and even there a maintenance oil (~4% crit chance) might be better.

Anyway, while the buff to Flame Jet does not make the FT our best option now, it would be close enough to BK and GK to be considered a DPS kit.

Mork vom Ork.2598:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I popped that into the spreadsheet and it actually comes out pretty favorable for FT. You lose the massive vuln stack (you only get about 5ish with Precise Sights) but gain extra might and the base DPS is actually pretty close to bombs and grenades (better than bombs overall, better than grenades if you don’t count bleed). If your party isn’t capped on either, FT probably actually deals better damage in a pug.

I’m not really sure how FT is better than bombs in your calculation.

With the new dmg increase Flame Jet would have a power coefficient of 1,995 spread over 2.57 seconds, Flame Blast has a combined coefficient of 2.5 (assuming you hit all targets with the ball before exploding it) with a cast time of approximately 0.5 sec (just ignoring the travel time for now) and a cooldown of 4.8 seconds with Fireforged trigger.

So we have a combined power coefficient of 6.49 over 5.64 seconds or 1.15 per second (1 Blast after every second Jet). With the 10% bonus damage to burning targets this is increased to 1.265 per second

Bomb has a power coefficient of 1.25 over 0.92 seconds or 1.36 per second.

If we add Explosive Powder and Deadly Mixture to the calculation it results in 1.45five (thank you kitten filter) for FT and 1.496 for the Bomb. Pretty close to Bomb but you have to give up 100 precision or power for it.

Also, Bomb hits up to 5 targets while Jet only 3, within a comparable area (assuming a 120° cone for Jet) and FT is not able to keep up permanent burning on multiple targets by itself.

In my opinion this change is a good buff for FT that will make it useful, especially for fights where you don’t want to get too close, but Bomb Kit will remain the best kit for pure direct damage and Grenade Kit the best for vulnerability and bleed stacking along with strong direct damage.

It’s because more damage comes from the Flame Blast rather than the primary, as opposed to bombs which are 100% from the primary, meaning that you get a bigger damage advantage when doing a rifle burst or using utilities.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I popped that into the spreadsheet and it actually comes out pretty favorable for FT. You lose the massive vuln stack (you only get about 5ish with Precise Sights) but gain extra might and the base DPS is actually pretty close to bombs and grenades (better than bombs overall, better than grenades if you don’t count bleed). If your party isn’t capped on either, FT probably actually deals better damage in a pug.

This is probably where the kit should be. It should deal more direct damage than bombs given its directional attack versus circular AoE, but there should still be reason to run bombs (smoke field, confusion stacks, AoE cripple, and better of the two fire fields).

I expect grenades will always be the top DPS option for dungeons and fractals, but I am very glad to hear that running the flamethrower at Tequatl, Wurm, and WvW is now a viable option.

Ideally I think we’re going to see two good PvE specs for engineer: bombs + FT for might, bombs + grenades for vulnerability, with throw mine or elixir gun as third utility depending on what you need.

Super stoked for October!

Oxstar.7643:

tigirius.9014:

I see it as more of a global problem. Remove the requirement for conditions entirely on builds that don’t use conditions. They can do this with a bit of manipulation. There are key choices people make when making a condition build so that they use conditions exclusively in every class they could fix every class so that the only time skills apply conditions are when they are using those traits to improve condition damage or time.

it would improve things like the FT by default because those who chose a power or burst damage option could use FT without worrying about using a condi damage stacker.

I think the whole thing needs work but if they started on the engi that’s the first thing I’d do is increase the base damage across the board of #1 skills allowing them to be more useful as power and burst options and taking out any condition adders until one chooses a typical condition build modifier trait.

Then again, the POINT of flamethrowers are to burn things. So a flamethrower that was not all about inflicting as much burn as possible would be a very weird flamethrower.

To me it’s already setup that way. It has a 1 second burn not at the beginning of the #1 attack mind you but at the end. There’s plenty in the engineer list of abilities that doesn’t make sense like mines not causing a slow for example. This would be a solution to a global problem with condis so that non condi builds wouldn’t be stacking condis in large fights taking out any hope for build diversity.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

It’s because more damage comes from the Flame Blast rather than the primary, as opposed to bombs which are 100% from the primary, meaning that you get a bigger damage advantage when doing a rifle burst or using utilities.

I have done some more tests and calculations this morning and have come to some surprising results.

The first one was that the attack speed (time needed to fully activate the skill) data on the Wiki was inaccurate for some skills (it is updated now):

• Grenade attack speed on land is 1 second (previously stated as 0.85 seconds)
• Hip Shot attack speed is 0.84 seconds (previously stated as 0.9 seconds)
• Bomb attack speed is 0.88 seconds (previously stated as 0.92 seconds)

The second one was that after standardization of the power coeffitients in relation to attack speed and weapon strength (exotic rifle’s 1095.5 to “exotic” kit’s 923.5) the newly buffed Flame Jet with a burning target and Deadly Mixture will still hit for a little less than Hip Shot with Rifle Mod.

This led me to the following conclusions:

1. If we assume perfect aligning of targets in a line for the Flame Blast double hit, any FT build would be just as viable now as it will be later in terms of raw damage, simply by using rifle autoattacks. Of course the blast finisher will be a nice addition.
2. Grenade Kit’s raw direct damage is actually a lot lower than I thought (not counting the massive vulnerability stacking)
3. If vulnerability is taken care of by others in the group, a BK + FT + EG 4/6/0/4/0 build should be among the top builds for pure direct damage with a lot of low cooldown blast finishers.

Grenades actually are .85 per toss, I originally thought it was 1s per toss too but after I noticed that on the wiki and I went and tested myself and it is in fact slightly faster than that. If you have the patience to go out and throw 85 grenades it’ll take you exactly 100 seconds.

This is exactly what I did – tossed 100 Grenades with instant ground targeting and it took exactly 100 seconds. To be sure I just repeated it twice.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Grenades actually are .85 per toss, I originally thought it was 1s per toss too but after I noticed that on the wiki and I went and tested myself and it is in fact slightly faster than that. If you have the patience to go out and throw 85 grenades it’ll take you exactly 100 seconds.

I don’t see how that is the case. Remember when we were comparing bomb kit DPS and grenade DPS? I tested it myself a couple months back throwing grenades literally right on top of my engineer. After a full minute I had thrown exactly 60 volleys. In the same time span I dropped 65 bombs.

You even tested it yourself after I said this and agreed with me. Has the animation changed in some way recently?

Mork vom Ork.2598:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

It’s because more damage comes from the Flame Blast rather than the primary, as opposed to bombs which are 100% from the primary, meaning that you get a bigger damage advantage when doing a rifle burst or using utilities.

This led me to the following conclusions:

1. If we assume perfect aligning of targets in a line for the Flame Blast double hit, any FT build would be just as viable now as it will be later in terms of raw damage, simply by using rifle autoattacks. Of course the blast finisher will be a nice addition.

That’s depressing, especially for those like me whom wanted to make ‘full’ use of juggernaut by sitting in it.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Grenades actually are .85 per toss, I originally thought it was 1s per toss too but after I noticed that on the wiki and I went and tested myself and it is in fact slightly faster than that. If you have the patience to go out and throw 85 grenades it’ll take you exactly 100 seconds.

I don’t see how that is the case. Remember when we were comparing bomb kit DPS and grenade DPS? I tested it myself a couple months back throwing grenades literally right on top of my engineer. After a full minute I had thrown exactly 60 volleys. In the same time span I dropped 65 bombs.

You even tested it yourself after I said this and agreed with me. Has the animation changed in some way recently?

I think it did. To be honest I’m a little bit confused about it now myself, I tested it recently and it was definitely .85 per and now it seems to be back to 1 per. I suspect it may be an issue with latency or inconsistent queueing because I’m actually not getting 1s per consistently either, sometimes it seems to be slightly faster and sometimes slightly slower.

At any rate grenades being back to 1s per actually doesn’t affect overall DPS that much, surprisingly.

That should be between 5-10% dps decrase. Pretty noticiable pal, at least on your dps rankings

So can someone give a good estimate how much % less DPS the new FT will do compare to Bombs/nades?

Ryn.6459:

That should be between 5-10% dps decrase. Pretty noticiable pal, at least on your dps rankings

Grenades don’t account for the entirety of the engineer’s DPS. In actuality the DPS decrease is only around 5% depending on how you count it.