Guild Wars 2

I wish Anet would have a closer look at/rework the entire Explosives trait line. A majority of builds that use nades, bombs or mortar are effectively pigeonholed into taking it, usually for a single major-choice, while other dps builds without those utilities wouldn’t think of touching it.

Personally, I think the problem with Explosives is the terrible minors and grandmaster choices (as well as grenadier not being baseline, pls anet). Looking at every other class’ “direct damage” tree you quickly notice a trend that the minors are either a flat % increase to damage or some buff to the class mechanic ie. not having to take any particular weapon/utility; turret-knockback is the GM minor while every other turret trait is in inventions, synergy ftw.

On grandmaster trait choices, Shrapnel is literally a pray2rngesus trait that has very little to do with direct damage and is directed entirely at nades/bombs. It makes more sense for it to be moved to adept firearms and move Rifled Barrels to Explo. Thermobaric Detonation is tied to the best defensive cooldown, as well as having a 10s ICD for an effect that adds literally zero direct damage in any way. Siege Rounds is a decent trait for mortar builds, but again it’s pigeonhole because basically every other trait in the tree is useless without bombs or nades.
/endrant

What’re my fellow engineers’ opinions on Explosives?

Make current Siege Rounds baseline and rework it.
Siege Rounds: Increase Mortar Shot radius to 240. Mortar shells are now unblockable.

Hahahaha, dude, a year ago I said this exact thing and quite a few people said I was wrong.

Here we are today and very few people are using the explosives line. Yes I am saying “I told you so”.

Renny.6571:

On grandmaster trait choices, Shrapnel is literally a pray2rngesus trait that has very little to do with direct damage and is directed entirely at nades/bombs. It makes more sense for it to be moved to adept firearms and move Rifled Barrels to Explo.

That makes zero sense. I mean, what? Why move a trait that explicitly deals with explosives to the line that has nothing to do with them? I’m also not exactly sure about the second part, what with Rifled Barrels being a defunct trait that’s not in the game at all anymore.

Ariurotl.3718:

That makes zero sense. I mean, what? Why move a trait that explicitly deals with explosives to the line that has nothing to do with them? I’m also not exactly sure about the second part, what with Rifled Barrels being a defunct trait that’s not in the game at all anymore.

Ideally they’d rework Shrapnel, but the idea for the switch is that it stacks condis. FA is the condi line and pistol autos still count as explosions. I meant Skilled Marksman being swapped out.

make grenadeers and short fuse base line so that we can use nades and bombs only with firearms … like the old days … ( before IP was moved from explosive to firearms)

Dirame.8521:

Here we are today and no one is using the explosives line. Yes I am saying “I told you so”.

TIL I’m ‘no one’

I agree, Explosives is just a bunch of no choices, a dead end. Explosive Decent, Thermobaric Denotation, Evasive Poweder Keg have no interest at all : could be deleted and leaved empty, nobody would even care.

This is the spec of 2 kits, you go here only for more direct damages with grenades or bombs, and then all choices are already made.
- 1st majors : required if nades OR useless OR crap
- 2nd majors : good OR good OR not enough regarding bombs usage (spam 1)
- 3rd majors : crap OR crap OR useless

Summary :
- Nades = useless + REQUIRED + good + GOOD + good + CRAP
- Bombs = useless + CRAP + good + GOOD + good + CRAP
- Anything else = useless + CRAP + useless + GOOD + useless + USELESS

They could replace everything in Explosives with a single minor traits which would include : Grenadier/ShortFuse/SiegeRound/+x% damages with explosions + some balancing … it would looks exactly the same.

When you compare to the well designed Firearms :
- 1st majors : Condi if pistol OR Buff/Debuff OR Crit
- 2nd majors : Condi if precision OR Rifle OR Crit
- 3rd majors : Flamethower OR Direct damages OR Condi
- Minors : Condi+Crit
So you can go there just for FT OR just for rifle OR just for crit OR mainly for condi, you will still appreciate all minors and majors filled in.

Jerus.4350:

Dirame.8521:

Here we are today and no one is using the explosives line. Yes I am saying “I told you so”.

TIL I’m ‘no one’

Heh, I shouldn’t type definite statements like that. Let me change that to, “very few people”.

so a tree called EXPLOSIVES is good to use with things that explode.

hmm its like they was designed to go hand in hand. i wonder …….

Dirame.8521:

Jerus.4350:

Dirame.8521:

Here we are today and no one is using the explosives line. Yes I am saying “I told you so”.

TIL I’m ‘no one’

Heh, I shouldn’t type definite statements like that. Let me change that to, “very few people”.

:D It’s just not used in sPVP as I understand. I do use it in PVE on almost every build, and often in WvW as well.

Glass Cannon is just trash. It’s a tiny bonus that you’ll only ever be able to keep up in PvE, but you’re forced into taking it on any build not running ‘nades, because your only other choice is a falling damage trait that is useless 99% of the time. It really needs to get merged into explosive descent or something so we can get a trait that’s actually useful added in its place. The ICDs on thermobaric detonation and evasive powder keg are also disgusting. They should have at the absolute maximum a 2s ICD, 10s just kills them completely. I think the other 2 GMs are mostly fine where they are.

The master tier seems pretty bland though, as both the #esports rocket and shaped charge are competing for the exact same thing, increased direct damage. I can’t think of a good solution to that except maybe moving one of them to a different tier though.

Sins.4782:

Glass Cannon is just trash. It’s a tiny bonus that you’ll only ever be able to keep up in PvE, but you’re forced into taking it on any build not running ‘nades, because your only other choice is a falling damage trait that is useless 99% of the time. It really needs to get merged into explosive descent or something so we can get a trait that’s actually useful added in its place. The ICDs on thermobaric detonation and evasive powder keg are also disgusting. They should have at the absolute maximum a 2s ICD, 10s just kills them completely. I think the other 2 GMs are mostly fine where they are.

The master tier seems pretty bland though, as both the #esports rocket and shaped charge are competing for the exact same thing, increased direct damage. I can’t think of a good solution to that except maybe moving one of them to a different tier though.

I really don’t understand why there was blanket ICD added to the on-dodge traits. Surely such skills are gated enough by being tied to energy? Who exactly was absuing dodge in order to trigger these skills and what exactly was OP about it that required a cooldown on top of being energy-gated?

If I try to think like a game designer …

They realized you could cumulate about 7 evades (2 from bases + 2 from elixir R + 1 sigil + 1 rune + 1 recharged), and so deal pretty strong aoe damages in melee for about 7 seconds with 7 blast while being almost invulnerable … which could also stack with rocket charge (2 times, at start and end) and shock shield, so it was 11s of block/evades with 14s of damages … and so 1 more evades could recharge which finally give 12s of block/evades with 15s of aoe damages + 8 blasts and 4 leaps. In fact, maybe they just realized half of this, which would already be enough overpowered.

So they added this ICD. And to choose the duration, they looked at others auto damage traits ICD : boom, 10s (others traits which don’t cost a dodge in melee, are automatically targeted, and are passively triggered from any damages, humf). Then they stopped at this point and were satisfied by the balanced result. But they didn’t asked themself what does this result really worth in pratice, it was enough for them to make it just fit into their balancing principles in theory.

If they would had done this (thinking about the result), they would had seen this result just worth nothing. They would had deleted major trait, or reworked both from start. ICD killed the whole mechanic of those traits, it was added on the minor to limit the effect of the major (the minor was never a problem before HoT), one more free nerf on the spec, suffered even if you don’t take the major. Like this, both minor and major have now no interest at all.

In the first communications on HoT, there was no ICD mentioned, everyone could see great synergies with soothing detonation (ever asked yourself where is the interrest of this other trait ? here was the anwser), our different water fields, our endurance regen abilities, it was looking really cool. So, in fact, there is not only the 2 Explosives traits to rework, but also this other one from Inventions. Just one ICD killed them all, no more purpose, all original intentions were surely already forgotten.

Am I wrong ? If not, please do the rework from start, better late than never !

Perhaps that gimmicky evade could be forgiven if the trait had other sinergies with other stuff, i mean, we have mines that do little with what the explosives trait offers for a single use explosive, rumble could be taken as explosive too, acid bomb could be taken as an explosion too! why not?

It’s a terrible tree, steer well clear. Whilst siege rounds are actually ok the other 2 GM’s are worse than some classes minors. Mender’s Purity for mesmer, their first minor in Inspiration is better than both these GM traits.

Move thermobaric to tier 1 skill to replace glass cannon, this skill is so bad it should probably just be deleted and remade. Combine glass cannon with shaped charge drop it in the GM slot that was taken by thermobaric.

Lets merge short fuse, grenadier and shrapnel into the current shrapnel GM trait. Rename it something appropriate, Master of explosions or something roleplay.

Make useful 2nd and 1st tier traits to replace shaped charge, short fuse and grenadier. Maybe something involving mines for the 1st tier trait. Maybe something to replace the old favourite elixir infused bombs for the first tier 2 trait. And something else for the last tier 2 trait. Critical strikes clear conditions from you with a 5sec ICD? or the thief’s practiced tolerance.

krixis.9538:

so a tree called EXPLOSIVES is good to use with things that explode.

hmm its like they was designed to go hand in hand. i wonder …….

Then rename it “Damage Thingies” if your idea of balance/design philosophy hinges on the name of something. There isn’t another class that’s so tunneled into a trait tree because they take a specific utilty skill (bar Guardian Medis, but the synergies in Valor are great).

NineLives.8725:

If I try to think like a game designer …

They realized you could cumulate about 7 evades (2 from bases + 2 from elixir R + 1 sigil + 1 rune + 1 recharged), and so deal pretty strong aoe damages in melee for about 7 seconds with 7 blast while being almost invulnerable … which could also stack with rocket charge (2 times, at start and end) and shock shield, so it was 11s of block/evades with 14s of damages … and so 1 more evades could recharge which finally give 12s of block/evades with 15s of aoe damages + 8 blasts and 4 leaps. In fact, maybe they just realized half of this, which would already be enough overpowered.

etc

This is literally Vault spam thief though. Granted, pre-HoT comboing blasts way more practical however utilising a no-ICD EPK in any game mode would’ve been extremely niche for the exact reason you described: a completely non-functional build that’s dependent on other cooldowns anyway. It’s also hard to justify EPK/TBD being anything more than ordinary with the slight delay on the damage/blast activation wherein any kind of unwanted field may be placed before the detonation in an uncoordinated group leading you to waste a dodge.

Came up with an overhaul for Explosives based on feedback here and on the meh rifle thread. I feel a lot of these suggested changes afford Engineer more flexibility for power-based builds by allowing a variety of options to suit different playstyles across each of the game modes and provides synergy with some of the lesser taken trait choices available in the other trees.

Let me know what you think? #Rifleengidream

General
- Mortar Kit is now a “Device Kit” (w/ Nades+Bombs)
- Removed Grenadier, Short Fuse, Siege Rounds
- Grenade velocity increased by 100%
- Orbital Strike strikes twice
- (New master major FA trait): Aura that grants 150 Expertise

Adept
- New adept minor “Energised Belt”: Toolbelt skills grant 2s fury
- Glass Cannon increased to 7%, threshold increased to 75%
- EPK+TBD merged into “Thermobaric Evasion”, moved to adept major

Master
- Changed “Steel Packed Powder”: With fury, crits cause 3 vuln (5s), 1s icd
- Moved “Skilled Marksman” to Explosives master major
- Changed “Shaped Charge”: Swapping into a Device Kit grants 150 power? for 5sec, 10sec icd
- Changed “Aim Assisted Rocket”: Velocity increased by 50%, damages and leaves pulsing fire/burning field (5s) on impact.

Grandmaster
- Changed “Explosive Powder”: Crits on foes with vuln take small amt of delayed damage (similar to rev sword 3rd auto)
- New GM “Demolitionist’s Dream”: Device Kit skills 20% cd reduction and have extra effects. Nades: Increased radius by 60, Bombs: Det time -1sec, Mortar: 50% increased field duration.
- Changed “Shrapnel”: While standing on a field deal 10% more damage, increased to 20% when foe is <50% health OR doubles effect of blasting field+deals damage (synergies with Thermobaric+AAR).
- New GM “Sonic Round”: Crit with rifle skills give 2might & stacks 1 “Sonic round” buff. At 5 stacks, next 3? rifle skills become unblockable.