Hammer damage
1 2
Anyone defending the current state of hammer is out of their mind:
- The auto attack is extremely weak, having the bonus might and vuln is pointless when the attack is both slow AND clunky thanks to aftercast. Standard grenades are still the only way to maintain competitive DPS so yay for RSI and 0 variety.
- #2 Is fine, but also has a pretty clunky aftercast and deceptively small range. The damage is perfectly for a melee burst skill. Actually reflecting anything is very hard with the presence of the tiniest lag.
- #3 Again the clunkiness is real. The damage is fine but the delay between each leap means you can easily get interrupted/countered as it doesn’t match the evade time given.
- #4 Is probably the most solid skill, no problems here. I’d be fine if they toned back the vulnerability.
- #5 The 2nd most solid skill. Cast time feels easy to accidentally cancel. I’d be okay of they reduced the range to 900.
If they don’t completely rework Gyros then they better make up for it with a decent weapon that’s not just another utility/burst swap in.
You may want to test #2 again, the range is quite nice.
Are we talking pvp or pve? If we want to play with 0 kits at all, then the AA is a little weak. This is entirely intentional, kits are our DPS option after all. If we’re worried about DPS, we don’t AA.
As for #3, it is a little clunky but it feels fine that way. It doesn’t need to be perfect, because I know I wouldn’t want a perfectly solid gap closer + long evade like that in PvP with so much defense elsewhere on the same bar. And in PvE, it’ll just have to be a l2p thing, 80% of the time all 3 hits connect because of their massive radius. Ledges are pretty scary though, may need some tuning for those but w/e if not.
Kluzu – Engineer (Main)
Kluzukaze – Mesmer
Rhomulos Prime – Revenant
Kluzukaze – Mesmer
Rhomulos Prime – Revenant
Anyone defending the current state of hammer is out of their mind:
- The auto attack is extremely weak, having the bonus might and vuln is pointless when the attack is both slow AND clunky thanks to aftercast. Standard grenades are still the only way to maintain competitive DPS so yay for RSI and 0 variety.
- #2 Is fine, but also has a pretty clunky aftercast and deceptively small range. The damage is perfectly for a melee burst skill. Actually reflecting anything is very hard with the presence of the tiniest lag.
- #3 Again the clunkiness is real. The damage is fine but the delay between each leap means you can easily get interrupted/countered as it doesn’t match the evade time given.
- #4 Is probably the most solid skill, no problems here. I’d be fine if they toned back the vulnerability.
- #5 The 2nd most solid skill. Cast time feels easy to accidentally cancel. I’d be okay of they reduced the range to 900.
If they don’t completely rework Gyros then they better make up for it with a decent weapon that’s not just another utility/burst swap in.
I agree on mostly everything.
And to people saying #2 radius is fine, 180 radius centered on the engineer means you actually have a melee skill with 90 range, while every other melee skill has by default 130.
Increasing the radius from 180 to 240 wouldn’t be gamebreaking, in my opinion.
EDIT: no, 180 radius is fine, please ignore my stupidity I thought it was diameter.
(edited by Frenk.5917)
I really hope the aa stays as it is. Engi shall never become another aa > rest class. I enjoy getting rewarder for NOT using the aa. Hammer should be the strongest weapon aa, but still be weaker than the aa of damaging kits.
Ziggs Ironeye – Engineer | Madame Le Blanc – Mesmer | Mentor (PvE) | EU
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”
Cannot agree with that. Be it kits or weapons, they’re still autoattacks.
If anything, by giving an autoattack that wouldn’t lose out to kits’ ones, we wouldn’t be forced to take kits even just for that purpose. Lessening the impact that kits have on the class and giving more choices to the players would only be good for the class.
Especially if they want us to use the new utilities. Cause having them losing out to kits (and like everything else, anyway) AND having kits forced upon yet again for any little thing is a surefire way to not see those gyros used at all.
The real question here is; Why would you need to just be auto-attacking with the hammer instead of doing other things? Are you really just asking for an option to be lazier but still get good results?
In PVE, hammer is fine. Doesn’t need AA damage. Really, there’s much better skills to be using than a slightly beefier weapon auto even if it’s more work.
In PVP, the hammer needs a downside. Right now it’s the weak auto and the slightly exploitable gaps in evades on hammer 3. If the auto was stronger, we’d have some issues with balance and lesser skilled played would have way too much reward for simply auto-attacking.
^ Quoting for truth.
Because it may happen – especially seeing that we’ve got a single main weapon by default, and we may not have kits if we’re using other utilities instead – that such other skills are on cooldown, thus making us rely on the autoattack during that time.
Especially seeing that we’ve got new utilities that we are supposed to use along with the hammer.
You’re missing the point. It’s not about that any kits #1 should be better than hammer #1. But any damage oriented #2-#5 should be remarkable better than any #1 skill.
Ziggs Ironeye – Engineer | Madame Le Blanc – Mesmer | Mentor (PvE) | EU
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”
You’re missing the point. It’s not about that any kits #1 should be better than hammer #1. But any damage oriented #2-#5 should be remarkable better than any #1 skill.
Yet grenades auto attack completely blows everything you are saying right out of the water.
The real question here is; Why would you need to just be auto-attacking with the hammer instead of doing other things? Are you really just asking for an option to be lazier but still get good results?
In PVE, hammer is fine. Doesn’t need AA damage. Really, there’s much better skills to be using than a slightly beefier weapon auto even if it’s more work.
In PVP, the hammer needs a downside. Right now it’s the weak auto and the slightly exploitable gaps in evades on hammer 3. If the auto was stronger, we’d have some issues with balance and lesser skilled played would have way too much reward for simply auto-attacking.
I’ll try to address something that doesn’t seem to have a lot of emotion wrapped up in it instead. Are you guys sure you’re not getting normal block functionality from Shock Shield? Every time I have used it it blocks like any other block even after the skill is over for a second or so. I even tried it again just to make sure and it is definitely working at any range in any direction for me. I pulled one of the profession NPCs in the HotM (Engineer specifically) and immediately turned around and ran ~400 range away then used the block skill. I blocked the next two attacks.
The block’s up-time doesn’t match it’s animation is the issue, the first half of the channel seems to leave you open, while you’re blocking for a bit after the channel ends.
Lazier?
Engineer players have this terrible complex going on right now: I like to call it Starcraft Envy.
For some reason we’ve come to the conclusion that if we press a lot of buttons really fast that we are suuuuper SUUUUUPER skilled! Mom get the camera! I just pressed Blowtorch, Shrapnel Grenades, Incendiary Ammo, Fire Bomb, Big Ol’ Bomb, Grenade Barrage, Rifle Jump, Blunderbuss, Shrapnel Grenades, Fire Bomb and and and-
Oh wait.
Let’s take a look at those skills again, johnny.
Would you look at that!
They all do the EXACT SAME THING : deal damage.
When you start just using cooldowns on this kit and that kit and this kit and that kit without even putting a second thought into it other than “Well golly gee I need more damage” then its not skilled. It’s just more keystrokes, which I guess can equate to skill if you’re a trying to teach a dog or a monkey to play video games.
The problem herein lies that skills need to be less “PRESS THIS FOR EPIC DAMAGE DUDE” and more “If X situation, press Blowtorch”. That needs to be the case, we can’t just have a million abilities that all basically say “Well do some damage”, auto attacks and maybe an additional ability on a weapon should be used for damage, the others should all be situational or reactionary. That would make it a measure of skill. But until that happens (it won’t), Engineer will never be “complicated” because you’re pressing buttons, bud.
Take a look at Elixir Gun, for example. THAT is a healthy weapon kit design, if you deal condition damage. The #2 skill is a cripple that you can use off cooldown, but the #3 actually has some thought attached to it: I can use it to apply vuln and poison or cleanse some conditions. I can use Acid Bomb as a finisher, an escape, or to deal damage. I can use #5 to provide some constant healing, or cleanse a condition. THIS weapon is a prime example of what a kit should be. Grenades are a prime example of what they shouldn’t: “Press 1 to throw nades to deal damage, press 2 to throw nades to deal damage, press 3 to throw nades to deal damage, press 4 to throw nades to deal damage, press 5 to throw nades to deal damage.”
There is nothing wrong with requesting more damage on an auto attack. There is nothing wrong in using an auto attack to deal damage. I would argue that it is worse, MUCH worse, when auto attacks become irrelevant and suddenly skills just become auto attacks 2.0. Because then any hope for variety just goes out the window.
This is why I would rather have the hammer use the auto to stack some damage before using the whirl to reflect something (which it currently sucks at doing) the 3 to close the gap (which is currently unreliable) or the 4 to block some damage (which is also currently unreliable). I would much rather have this be the case than “PRESS ALL THE BUTTONS ONCE THEN SWAP TO A GRENADES LADDIE WOOHOO”
tl;dr
There is no difference, fundementally, thematically, mechanically, or otherwise between mashing 1 to deal damage, and mashing 2,3,4,5 —--> next kit, 2,3,4,5 to deal damage. It is the same thing, down to the function and playstyle.
(edited by Ricky Rouse.1583)
Engie DPS rotations do not look like that. At all.
Engie DPS rotations do not look like that. At all.
Have you ever seen “The Rotation” for burn Engineer that spans 45+ skills?
It is exactly that, down to what I said: Shrapnel, Barrage, Blowtorch, Poison Darts, Fire Bomb, Concussion bomb, ect ect ect with grenade auto attacks in between. It is using high damage skills off cooldown with no thought involved. Blowtorch shows up like 4 times in the rotation because it’s literally just using them as they come up off cooldown.
Also, i’m talking about PvE, not PvP.
Engie DPS rotations do not look like that. At all.
Have you ever seen “The Rotation” for burn Engineer that spans 45+ skills?
It is exactly that, down to what I said: Shrapnel, Barrage, Blowtorch, Poison Darts, Fire Bomb, Concussion bomb, ect ect ect with grenade auto attacks in between. It is using high damage skills off cooldown with no thought involved. Blowtorch shows up like 4 times in the rotation because it’s literally just using them as they come up off cooldown.
Also, i’m talking about PvE, not PvP.
Look at what you originally posted and what you just said now.
That rotation at most requires you use two skills from one kit back to back. It is pretty involved, requires good knowledge of cooldowns and most importantly: does significantly less damage if you cannot keep up with it. The power rotation is more forgiving in this regard.
Now, after you have mastered it, it is certainly ‘mindless’ but nowhere near as much as just auto attacking.
And by the way, unless Hammer AA somehow manages to severely outclass skills 2 – 5 on every kit, optimal DPS will STILL require long rotations that at most use hammer AA like like it does grenade AA.
The point is this: Kits would need a massive nerf or Hammer AA severely overpowered (to the point of outclassing all weapons and kits) for kitless builds to be optimal. At least in PvE.
Engie DPS rotations do not look like that. At all.
Have you ever seen “The Rotation” for burn Engineer that spans 45+ skills?
It is exactly that, down to what I said: Shrapnel, Barrage, Blowtorch, Poison Darts, Fire Bomb, Concussion bomb, ect ect ect with grenade auto attacks in between. It is using high damage skills off cooldown with no thought involved. Blowtorch shows up like 4 times in the rotation because it’s literally just using them as they come up off cooldown.
Also, i’m talking about PvE, not PvP.
Look at what you originally posted and what you just said now.
That rotation at most requires you use two skills from one kit back to back. It is pretty involved, requires good knowledge of cooldowns and most importantly: does significantly less damage if you cannot keep up with it. The power rotation is more forgiving in this regard.
Now, after you have mastered it, it is certainly ‘mindless’ but nowhere near as much as just auto attacking.
And by the way, unless Hammer AA somehow manages to severely outclass skills 2 – 5 on every kit, optimal DPS will STILL require long rotations that at most use hammer AA like like it does grenade AA.
The point is this: Kits would need a massive nerf or Hammer AA severely overpowered (to the point of outclassing all weapons and kits) for kitless builds to be optimal. At least in PvE.
You are talking about semantics and not his actual point at all. If they leave the damage as it is now, Engineer DOES NOT CHANGE when taking Scrapper. You will still use the same rotation except slot 2/3 hammer skills into where you used to use rifle for the same overall effect. Scrapper does NOTHING to up our build diversity which was supposed to be the point of Elites. Scrapper was SUPPOSED to be a lockdown melee bruiser but what we got was just another version of rifle. In fact I think the “lockdown” on rifle is far better than what we see on hammer.
Right now Scrapper fails its primary task of giving us a new playstyle. Releasing it like this will change NOTHING about how engineer plays. It makes no utilities worth taking over kits, the class mechanic is flat out broken both in programming and in gameplay.
Moving some of the damage to the AA and giving hammer a reason to be camped with some synergy between its skills would let us take gasp utilities other than kits. Gadgets, Turrets, Gyros and Elixers (not S or X) would actually make it on to our bar.
(edited by displacedTitan.6897)
Engie DPS rotations do not look like that. At all.
Have you ever seen “The Rotation” for burn Engineer that spans 45+ skills?
It is exactly that, down to what I said: Shrapnel, Barrage, Blowtorch, Poison Darts, Fire Bomb, Concussion bomb, ect ect ect with grenade auto attacks in between. It is using high damage skills off cooldown with no thought involved. Blowtorch shows up like 4 times in the rotation because it’s literally just using them as they come up off cooldown.
Also, i’m talking about PvE, not PvP.
Look at what you originally posted and what you just said now.
That rotation at most requires you use two skills from one kit back to back. It is pretty involved, requires good knowledge of cooldowns and most importantly: does significantly less damage if you cannot keep up with it. The power rotation is more forgiving in this regard.
Now, after you have mastered it, it is certainly ‘mindless’ but nowhere near as much as just auto attacking.
And by the way, unless Hammer AA somehow manages to severely outclass skills 2 – 5 on every kit, optimal DPS will STILL require long rotations that at most use hammer AA like like it does grenade AA.
The point is this: Kits would need a massive nerf or Hammer AA severely overpowered (to the point of outclassing all weapons and kits) for kitless builds to be optimal. At least in PvE.
You are talking about semantics and not his actual point at all. If they leave the damage as it is now, Engineer DOES NOT CHANGE when taking Scrapper. You will still use the same rotation except slot 2/3 hammer skills into where you used to use rifle for the same overall effect. Scrapper does NOTHING to up our build diversity which was supposed to be the point of Elites. Scrapper was SUPPOSED to be a lockdown melee bruiser but what we got was just another version of rifle. In fact I think the “lockdown” on rifle is far better than what we see on hammer.
Right now Scrapper fails its primary task of giving us a new playstyle. Releasing it like this will change NOTHING about how engineer plays. It makes no utilities worth taking over kits, the class mechanic is flat out broken both in programming and in gameplay.
Moving some of the damage to the AA and giving hammer a reason to be camped with some synergy between its skills would let us take gasp utilities other than kits. Gadgets, Turrets, Gyros and Elixers (not S or X) would actually make it on to our bar.
Changing the AA does not fix Scrapper.
And you misunderstand the problem: unless kits themselves change, you can NEVER camp a weapon in PvE without fundamentally gimping yourself.
Improving the AA to the point some people suggest just ends up way overturning the weapon in PvP.
And that was not a semantic issue. He said two very different things. And regardless, he is wrong on both counts.
Finally:
Elixirs do not have an issue getting onto our bar. B, S, X and occasionally C are all fantastic.
Turrets and Gyros are not good enough to realistically compete with kits. That is not a ‘kits have a stranglehold on our profession’ issue but a ‘Turrets and Gyros are awful’ one.
In a world where Hammer becomes the Mary Sue of weapons, the only utilities you will ever serious consider are Gadgets, Elixirs and…Kits.
(edited by lorddarkflare.9186)
Engie DPS rotations do not look like that. At all.
Have you ever seen “The Rotation” for burn Engineer that spans 45+ skills?
It is exactly that, down to what I said: Shrapnel, Barrage, Blowtorch, Poison Darts, Fire Bomb, Concussion bomb, ect ect ect with grenade auto attacks in between. It is using high damage skills off cooldown with no thought involved. Blowtorch shows up like 4 times in the rotation because it’s literally just using them as they come up off cooldown.
Also, i’m talking about PvE, not PvP.
Look at what you originally posted and what you just said now.
That rotation at most requires you use two skills from one kit back to back. It is pretty involved, requires good knowledge of cooldowns and most importantly: does significantly less damage if you cannot keep up with it. The power rotation is more forgiving in this regard.
Now, after you have mastered it, it is certainly ‘mindless’ but nowhere near as much as just auto attacking.
And by the way, unless Hammer AA somehow manages to severely outclass skills 2 – 5 on every kit, optimal DPS will STILL require long rotations that at most use hammer AA like like it does grenade AA.
The point is this: Kits would need a massive nerf or Hammer AA severely overpowered (to the point of outclassing all weapons and kits) for kitless builds to be optimal. At least in PvE.
I hate to break it to you, but cooldowns are not hard to keep up with. You’re making it sounds complicated when it isn’t even remotely complicated. In fact, it isn’t complicated at all, it’s as basic as you can get.
And yes, it is mindless. Pressing a button because it is off cooldown and ONLY because it is off cooldown is mindless no matter how far you delude yourself to think otherwise. If you still think “press button when cooldown = 0” and “hard to keep up with” is any more complicated then doing something out of muscle memory and requires “mastery” (Its absolutely laughable to call it mastery by the way) then the argument will really proceed no further then where it is now.
Engie DPS rotations do not look like that. At all.
Have you ever seen “The Rotation” for burn Engineer that spans 45+ skills?
It is exactly that, down to what I said: Shrapnel, Barrage, Blowtorch, Poison Darts, Fire Bomb, Concussion bomb, ect ect ect with grenade auto attacks in between. It is using high damage skills off cooldown with no thought involved. Blowtorch shows up like 4 times in the rotation because it’s literally just using them as they come up off cooldown.
Also, i’m talking about PvE, not PvP.
Look at what you originally posted and what you just said now.
That rotation at most requires you use two skills from one kit back to back. It is pretty involved, requires good knowledge of cooldowns and most importantly: does significantly less damage if you cannot keep up with it. The power rotation is more forgiving in this regard.
Now, after you have mastered it, it is certainly ‘mindless’ but nowhere near as much as just auto attacking.
And by the way, unless Hammer AA somehow manages to severely outclass skills 2 – 5 on every kit, optimal DPS will STILL require long rotations that at most use hammer AA like like it does grenade AA.
The point is this: Kits would need a massive nerf or Hammer AA severely overpowered (to the point of outclassing all weapons and kits) for kitless builds to be optimal. At least in PvE.
I hate to break it to you, but cooldowns are not hard to keep up with. You’re making it sounds complicated when it isn’t even remotely complicated. In fact, it isn’t complicated at all, it’s as basic as you can get.
And yes, it is mindless. Pressing a button because it is off cooldown and ONLY because it is off cooldown is mindless no matter how far you delude yourself to think otherwise. If you still think “press button when cooldown = 0” and “hard to keep up with” is any more complicated then doing something out of muscle memory and requires “mastery” (Its absolutely laughable to call it mastery by the way) then the argument will really proceed no further then where it is now.
You argue that using an auto attack is exactly the same in every way to following long multi-kit rotations. Moreover, you argue that balance decisions should be based around that inanity.
You are correct, we cannot proceed any further.
There are occasions in which I want to just autoattack. Scrapper in WVW melee train for example has only hammer and toolkit as weapons and you cant just spam everything like in PvE. A strong autoattack enables us to be valuable and WANTED in wvw, something we have never been. As it is now, scrapper is just a standard worker warrior build without warbanner.
nah it needs a solid 15-20% damage buff. if rev sword can get it, why not a 2 HANDED HAMMER
Because Engineers need to use their kits.
That’s why all our #1 skills are kinda kitten, by comparison Hammer is probably already the best one Engineer can get.
So… since no one responded, I’m assuming that no one has the numbers. Well, never fear, for I am here! As always, these numbers are acquired in PVP with no gear equipped and with no modifying traits equipped. These are the effective “baseline” values for 1000 power exotic. First the reference numbers:
Bomb: 444. 5 targets, 240 radius, 1 second fuse. 0.5 seconds listed per attack. 0.84 seconds between actual attacks. 529 DPS.
Grenade: 117. 3 grenades, 5 targets 0.5 seconds listed attack speed. 1 second actual attack speed. 351 DPS.
Smack: 284. 2 × 6 vuvlnerability per hit. 1 × 2 cripple per hit. 3 targets. 0.5 listed activation time.
Whack: Identical to Smack
Thwack: 622. 1 × 2 cripple per hit. 1 target. 1 second listed activation time.
Total attack speed: 3.23 seconds.
Total Tooltip DPS: 368
Hip Shot: 266. 0.75 listed activation time. 0.84 actual activation time. Tooltip DPS: 317
Flame Jet: 890. 1 × 2 burning. 2.25 seconds listed activation time. 2.57 seconds actual activation time. 346 tooltip DPS.
And now the hammer.
Positive Strike: 313. 1 × 8 might 3 targets, 130 range, 0.5 second listed activation time.
Negative Bash: 313, 1 × 8 vulnerability, 3 targets, 130 range, 0.5 second listed activation time
Equalizing Blow: 391, 1 × 8 might, 1 × 8 vulnerability. 3 targets. 130 range.
Total Attack Speed for the auto attack: 3.1 seconds.
Total tooltip DPS (no buffs): 328
I’ll leave the balance philosophy to others, as I don’t play engi anymore. But currently the only thing that’s any good about the auto attack are the might/vuln. The might/vuln isn’t particularly spectacular once you factor in traits, so at base I’d suggest maybe a 25-33% increase to auto damage.
Now for other hammer skills:
Electro-Whirl: 430 per hit, 860 total. 3 targets, 180 radius, reflects missiles. x1 whirl finisher. 1 second listed activation time. Closer to 1.25 seconds actual time. 6 second cooldown.
Rocket Charge: 1,173 damage per 3 hits. 5 targets. 240 radius. x2 leap finisher. 1 second evade. 100 range. 1.75 second listed activation time. Closer to 2.25 seconds actual activation time. 10 second cooldown.
Shock Shield: 975 damage over kittens. 10 × 5 vulnerability. 5 targets. 2 second block. 170 range. 1.75 listed activation time. Closer to 2 seconds actual time. 20 second cooldown
Thunderclap: 1,410 damage over 6 hits.. 1 × 8 vulnerability per hit. 1 second stun on activation. 1 second interval per pulses. 240 radius. Lightning field. 1200 range. 24 second cooldown. 0.75 listed activation time. Closer to 1.5 seconds actual activation time.
Electro Whirl DPS: 688
Rocket Charge DPS: 521
Shock Shield DPS: 488
Thunderclap DPs: 940
At least electro whirl and thunderclap beat out bomb auto. For further references:
Jump Shot: 368 leap damage, 735 landing damage, 3 × 7 vulnerability per hit, 5 targets, 240 radius. Leap Finisher. 20 second cooldown. 1 second listed activation time. 1.5 seconds real activation time. DPS: 735
Blunderbuss: 654, 572, 490, 409 depending on range. 4 × 5 bleed, 3 × 5 bleed, 2 × 5 bleed, 1 × 5 bleed depending on range. 5 targets, 700 range (250 for max damage), 10 second cooldown. 0.5 second listed activation time. Closer to 1 second real activation time. 654 DPS + Bleeds
So I guess from a burst skills standpoint, the hammer does beat out the rifle in direct damage. 940 + 688 is better than 735 + 654 + bleeds.
But overall yeah, I reflect a lot of the sentiments here now. The hammer is too slow and the skills are a bit wonky. Total suggestions for the weapon:
#1: Increase the AA speed of the hammer to 2.3-2.5 seconds. This is a 33% to 25% buff in damage, along with a 33% to 25% buff in might/vuln stacking.
#2: Have electro whirl be at least 3 whirl finishers. Have electro whirl reflect projectiles from all directions.
#3: Increase the damage of Rocket Charge by 33%. Make the first leap a leap finisher as well.
Thunderclap and shock shield are fine
I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.
Because Engineers need to use their kits.
That’s why all our #1 skills are kinda kitten, by comparison Hammer is probably already the best one Engineer can get.
If kits were our class mechanic, you would be right. But then we would always have some of them at our disposal and thus balancing everything around them would finally make sense.
But since they are optional, we shouldn’t “need” to use them. And the balancing of literally everything else shouldn’t revolve around them.
The scrapper is supposed to change our class and give us new roles and ways to play? Well, start with the elephant in the room, then, and give us a spec that can work nicely with the instruments it provides – hammer and gyros (or even not-kit utilities, and that would already be quite a change).
The damage isn’t all that bad though I find some of the traits to be lackluster and the gyros to be kinda bleh as well. I posted some suggestions in the official suggestion thread and here’s what I say about the hammer.
The 10% damage from the gm traits needs to be baked into the weapon itself and the gm needs to be changed to something more useful I gave a suggestion in the other thread this is mainly about hammer though so leaving it out. The aftercast needs to be looked into as most of the skills have horrid aftercasts.
The other thing relating to damage is this the no.4 needs to lose around 10% damage but I suggest moving that 10% damage to the no.2 and also syncing the block duration for the no.4 to the animation of the skill. Reduce the range on the no.5 to 600 yards but up the stun duration to 1.75 seconds as the current 1200 range is a bit… excessive for how short the stun is.
nah it needs a solid 15-20% damage buff. if rev sword can get it, why not a 2 HANDED HAMMER
Because Engineers need to use their kits.
That’s why all our #1 skills are kinda kitten, by comparison Hammer is probably already the best one Engineer can get.
Unless they start to give us FT, EG, TK, Bombs & Nades on F1-F5 you’re entirely wrong.
Each kit blocks a utility-slot, still we need at least 1 kit to compensate for the missing weaponswap. But as soon as we do, we have 2AA’s and 8 skills readily available to all times since kits have no internal cd, ridiculing any balancing revolving around weaponswap.
And it just gets more & more complicated to balance things the more we slot.
The fact that pure kit engineers are so vastly more effective to any other build we could come up with, is because every other kind of build limits the amount of skills we have by a multiple of 5 per utility that is not a kit.
Normal engineers/scrappers without kits: 15 skills (5 more if you consider turret / gyro blowup-skills)
Full kit engineer: 35 skills (5 more from streamlined kits)
The fact that we CAN have up to 40 skills will always overshadow any consideration to make each kit viable in its own. This is why we can’t have nice things.
My proposal is this: Finally make our AA’s worthwhile
- put a 10sec cd on each kit after swapping out of it
- Reduce the swap-cd to 5sec if streamlined kits is equipped
- get rid of the old kit refinement skills or at least let them have individual cd’s and disable them from proccing outside of combat
If people still want to run full kit builds, feel free to do so, but now that it finally doesn’t end up in button-spam and has a solid cd-mechanic to balance around, you’ll see many skills getting buffed to make it acceptable to stay in them for a while, including using their AA’s to bridge the time. There is a reason why ele is so successful, and that is because all attunements on all weapon-sets are designed to be viable in itself.
- Make the TK & FT AA’s worthwhile, as well as the hammer’s, either by removing annoying aftercasts or buffing the dps-output
- Give us coated bullets for pistols & make them count as explosion
- Let nades only throw 1 grenade, so they can be properly balanced with themselves & explosive-related traits as well.
- Let grenade barrage only throw 3 grenades.
- Turn up the proc rate of shrapnel to 50% & increase the vulnerability-duration from steel-packed powder
Getting rid of the power-creep on nades is necessary to gives us a solid base to balance around. There is a reason why the slightest change to nades makes them either OP or worthless: Because they are essentially 3 skills in one, multiplying the impact of any change that slightly touches them. Hence bombs & mortar are so underwhelming. they barely proc vulnerability or shrapnel, because one has a really short duration, and the other a really low proc chance, both cause by the bad design behind nades.
- optionally swap soothing detonation or thermobaic detonation to elixir infused bombs. Now that nades are not puming out multiple projectiles anymore, it maybe could also proc from all skills marked as explosions, including pistoll AA, mortar & rockets (both from the turret & the trait)
Don’t get me wrong, I love running nades, but if you ever want the engineer to be able to do more stuff effectively without getting shoe-horned into this kit, then you should accept the fact that it needs to be brought in line.
Ask yourself: Do you have any reason to go into explosives if you’re NOT running nades? (Dmg-modifiers for the PvE-meta aside, which then again wouldn’t be remotely the same without the current nades-design)
So yes, until A-net wakes up & completely overhaules kits & weapons, I still want to play hammer to its fullest extend in the frontline, and that requires proper cleave-dmg on the AA. I don’t even care if that makes anything interacting with kits OP, since nades are still a thing and ridicule all other builds with their absence already when it comes to the meta.
Engineer is love, Engineer is life.
Arantheal I actually agree with you on the kits getting a cooldown thing I think they need to buff kits to be more like a normal weapon and have a 10 second cooldown when you decide to drop them. I think they need to limit it to 1 device kit and 1 weapon kit as well while buffing a few of the utility skills so that people get more options opened up to them instead of being all kits all the time.
It would make it feel more like the engineer has access to more weapons while also keeping the aesthetics of the class intact since the kits are unique to the engie.
From a PvE perspective, the Hammer actually has a lot of decent damage mitigation on it to cover your attacks. It lets the Scrapper function as a sort of half-tank, where you can safely be in the midst of a swarm of enemies until your skills are all on recharge.
As for the damage, it seems sort of average in general overall. I wouldn’t mind seeing a longer reflect and block on the #2 and #4 though.
I would actually suggest to increase the hammer damage slightly (about 10%). The actual improvement should be that it gives might for each enemy struck (this isnt the case right now. Or am I wrong?).
I dont think it needs a stronger power scaling but rather more base damage. This would make yhe weapon slightly better for builds with less power.
One of the Firstborn Channel of Fvux
You’re missing the point. It’s not about that any kits #1 should be better than hammer #1. But any damage oriented #2-#5 should be remarkable better than any #1 skill.
Yet grenades auto attack completely blows everything you are saying right out of the water.
If you beleve that’s true, you sure have a lot to learn …
Ziggs Ironeye – Engineer | Madame Le Blanc – Mesmer | Mentor (PvE) | EU
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”
“Mentoring engineers / mesmers and showing you what you can do with your fantastic class!
Just pm me for my advice! Always eager to help!”
If you buff the damage in pve, it’ll be OP in pvp. It is already a very good, easy to use weapon for pvp with great damage and survivability. Having reflect, evade, block all on lowish CD’s with good damage at the same time is pretty good imo :P
(edited by Twigifire.8379)
You’re missing the point. It’s not about that any kits #1 should be better than hammer #1. But any damage oriented #2-#5 should be remarkable better than any #1 skill.
Yet grenades auto attack completely blows everything you are saying right out of the water.
If you beleve that’s true, you sure have a lot to learn …
Yup. Grenade is good not because of baseline damage, but because of the explosives line. This is why no one EVER takes grenades without explosives.
Making hammer directly compete with grenades:
-Increase all skills in the chain to hit 5 targets
-All skills in the chain apply 5 seconds of vulnerability
-Remove some of the aftercast
-Decrease the damage
Not very impressive or THAT far off from what we have.
If people just want RAW AoE damage, they should be auto attacking with bombs. Those things hit harder than every other engie auto.
From what I gather, it’s a theme with Elite Specialization weapons to intentionally be undertuned on their very introduction so they can be brought up later, rather than the other way ’round.
Guess it’s the safer option.
For now it would be hugely important to fix the huuuuuuge downtime between autoattack chain parts, the capabilities of #3 hitting anything, and some minor number tunings. Heck, I’d be willing to accept a few more seconds of cooldown on #2 for that.
Leader of the Free Winds – RP, community, and all kinds of fun.
Jara Ariasdottir (Soon all classes proper!)
Jara Ariasdottir (Soon all classes proper!)
Yup. Grenade is good not because of baseline damage, but because of the explosives line. This is why no one EVER takes grenades without explosives.
Making hammer directly compete with grenades:
Have you done any DPS break downs to support that?
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