Guild Wars 2

*Note: you can take this as a rant of mine, but please read it and post your opinion afterwards about what I wrote here.

So as you all know the Greande kit and the Mortar kit’s first skills are gound-targeted, and therefore aren’t auto-attacks(for those less knowledgable, you have to keep pressing 1, or whatever keybinds used to get the attacks going).

So I ask you all:

Is there any reason to keep those skills ground-targeted instead of making them an auto-attack?

In essence, they work the same way as the Engineer’s Pistol skill 1, Fragmentation Shot(even moreso since specialization patch it’s considered an explosive), and the Elementalist’s Staff skill 1 on Fire Attunement Fireball, and probably other skills that don’t come to mind at this moment.

I’ve seen many people and many posts that say that if you’re going to use grenades (and now mortar as well), then you should get ready to get wreck you finger and feel a lot of pain, because you’re going to spam those skills like mad(unless of course people made a macro to make those buttons spammable, which is as far as I know unacceptable by Anet).

As far as I see it, those skills should be auto-attacks instead of ground-targeted skill, considering the spammability and the fact that other then doing damage, befitting an auto-attack(and maybe some conditions if traited), they don’t do anything else.

The ground-targeting aspect of those skills has its merits though. Being able to make the attack hit the ground and let its blast hit the foe instead of sending the attack directly at the foe could be very good in certain situations.
Take for example a Guardian that uses Wall of Reflection, sending the attack directly at the Guardian will only cause the attack to come back to you instead of hitting the Guardian, but with ground-targeting, you’re able to aim the attack at ground in the vicinity of said Guardian and let the explosion aspect of the skills hit him and therefore bypass the Wall of Reflection.

HOWEVER even for the ground-targeting merits, the fact that those skills are spammable, actually diminishes its usefullness. Those 2 kits have other skills which all of them are ground-targeted as well, but being non-spammable actually gives them more merits over the spammable ground-targeted skills, since those other skills can be used in the above situation as well.

So what do you think? Do the Greande kit and Mortar kit’s first skills should become auto-attacks(no more wrecking fingers in order to keep attacking) or keep them ground-targeted(being able to choose where the attack lends to bypass some defenses is nice)?

I want them to remain ground targetted basically because I enjoy it.

That said I think you left off another pro about them, being able to properly lead the target. Take Guardian’s Scepter auto. If anyone has ever played with it or against it, the ease in sidestepping it makes it pretty disappointing at times. They’d have to have the autos able to do some tracking to land effectively, and I don’t know, even then I think I’d want it in my own hands rather than having the game do it seeing as even with the tracking Necro DS auto I’ve seen it just whiff enough to think “kitten I wish the targetting was better.”

Overall, the idea of destroying your fingers has never bugged me. Maybe because I’m used to it, but also because I bound my keys to fit comfortably for me. My 1 skill is on a side button of my mouse so a little squeeze is all I need. So it’s never been a problem for me, in fact I enjoy the constant attention to detail I have to have to perform at a high level.

You can always swap to more friendly options for the 1 portion of rotations if you find it a pain, I believe this falls under the same idea as AI builds being generally weak. If you’re going to let the computer do it for you, you can’t maximize. I like that idea and fully support it in every instance it could apply.

I want them to remain ground targetted basically because I enjoy it.

That said I think you left off another pro about them, being able to properly lead the target. Take Guardian’s Scepter auto. If anyone has ever played with it or against it, the ease in sidestepping it makes it pretty disappointing at times. They’d have to have the autos able to do some tracking to land effectively, and I don’t know, even then I think I’d want it in my own hands rather than having the game do it seeing as even with the tracking Necro DS auto I’ve seen it just whiff enough to think “kitten I wish the targetting was better.”

Overall, the idea of destroying your fingers has never bugged me. Maybe because I’m used to it(if anyone played Bard in original EQ they know I’m probably well past Carpal Tunnel in my future by now), but also because I bound my keys to fit comfortably for me. My 1 skill is on a side button of my mouse so a little squeeze is all I need. So it’s never been a problem for me, in fact I enjoy the constant attention to detail I have to have to perform at a high level.

You can always swap to more friendly options for the 1 portion of rotations if you find it a pain, I believe this falls under the same idea as AI builds being generally weak. If you’re going to let the computer do it for you, you can’t maximize. I like that idea and fully support it in every instance it could apply.

Jerus.4350:

I want them to remain ground targetted basically because I enjoy it.

That said I think you left off another pro about them, being able to properly lead the target. Take Guardian’s Scepter auto. If anyone has ever played with it or against it, the ease in sidestepping it makes it pretty disappointing at times. They’d have to have the autos able to do some tracking to land effectively, and I don’t know, even then I think I’d want it in my own hands rather than having the game do it seeing as even with the tracking Necro DS auto I’ve seen it just whiff enough to think “kitten I wish the targetting was better.”

Overall, the idea of destroying your fingers has never bugged me. Maybe because I’m used to it, but also because I bound my keys to fit comfortably for me. My 1 skill is on a side button of my mouse so a little squeeze is all I need. So it’s never been a problem for me, in fact I enjoy the constant attention to detail I have to have to perform at a high level.

You can always swap to more friendly options for the 1 portion of rotations if you find it a pain, I believe this falls under the same idea as AI builds being generally weak. If you’re going to let the computer do it for you, you can’t maximize. I like that idea and fully support it in every instance it could apply.

In this case i’ve got an idea: give players the option to choose between making those skills either ground-targeted or auto-attacks(the same way we enable auto-attacks on skills), players who choose to make those skills auto-attacks should just make them auto-attacks(which in turn will remove the ground-targeting aspect of those skills), and should they choose ground-targeting instead, remove the auto-attack and re-enable the ground-targeting aspect of those skills.
With the way those skills work, there isn’t any difference other then skill usage here(more skilled players will preffer the ground-targeting over the auto-attack, and less skilled player, the opposite)
Of course, for balance reasons, this should only be applied to the first skills of the Grenade and Mortar kits.
Honestly, I don’t see why it isn’t like this already.

I play both kit but I never use nade/tar 1.

I actually posted an idea a bit ago about the ground target vs auto target. I think it could be applied to this also. Because some people prefer ground target others do not for some of the skills that have recently become ground target. Now you know you have the ability to ctrl + mouse button 2 to have attacks to go off automatic. Well why can’t you use ctrl + mouse button three to shift through targeting , ground target, self target for those that like to drop wells or other such things at their feet, and targeted strike for those that want the strike to land on an enemy they have targeted’s feet. I’m not sure how easy it would be to do but I’m sure that if anet wanted they could make this possible. At least for a select skill set.