Guild Wars 2

We have seen a huge amount of updates to the ele’s conjure weapons to make them worth using, however the mortar hasn’t seen any updates. In fact it’s a nearly useless elite. The grenade kit with trait has longer range, more utility, does not keep you rooted, does more damage and has lower cooldowns.

I have never seen another engineer use the mortar. I would like to be able to drop a mortar down in a fight and see people react like people do when they see a fiery greatsword. ( Rush to get it because it does lots of damage. )

I think that no one uses the Mortar because it can’t crit. All turret’s cannot crit but as this a player manned object I think it should crit vs players and things you can normally crit on.

I also think that people don’t use it because horizontal distance is included in it’s range. In wvw for example, if you are sitting in the lords room of the south east tower I think you should be able to hit the gate with a mortar, but you can’t hit anything except right below you.

Arenanet has said that the Engineer was inspired from Data from the Goonies movie, in the movie he was a character to provide comic relief (even thought the whole movie was fairly funny), even the art for engineer is full of colors unlike the rest of the classes with their monotones. I think this means engineer should be fun to play in a unique way, but some skills aren’t fun at all. Engineer is the least played class in the whole game and I think Arenanet can make the class more fun by fixing the bad elite that is Mortar.

Please visit the mortar elite in the next balance update!

If you want to add an idea to make mortar better please post!

I’ve seen a few ideas regarding improving the mortar.
Here are two that I particularly like, as I feel part of the issue is that it’s attempting to be two types of skill in one (hybrid classes are fine, hybrid skills tend to be lackluster):
1 ) Make it fully into an Elite Kit and allow it to be used on the move (similar to Charrzooka, probably)
2 ) Make it fully into an Elite Turret with the #1 skill being the Normal attack, the #5 skill into the Overcharge, and have it target the Engineer’s current target (kitten to this ‘last damaged’ tripe)

Then there’s also simply buffing it in a variety of ways (damage, velocity, range, durability) and bugfixing it properly (come to think of it, I need to bug_test_ it thoroughly, same as I have the rest of Turrets, which I believe it technically is; due to its little-used nature, I’ve not seen quite the plethora of issues reported – matter of fact, if anyone has any Mortar bugs to report for confirmation, corroboration and addition to the Turret bug list, drop me a PM so I can get to work on it).

Man, this comes up from time to time and it would be nice to see Anet do something about it. I posted a thread myself about my thoughts on it. Mortar #1 should increase in radius for one. Either the range should be greatly increased or, because it would have to be used in close, it should have its hp and toughness greatly increased, maybe even made indestructible considering that the person using it is still subject to damage. Nothing worse than putting Mortar down within range only to have it destroyed before the player even is able to get off one shot.

Ok. How about this. Ready? It’s a shocker.

Mortar kit.

Yeah?

imo, first fix it’s buggs then buff it accordingly. this applies to all turrets tbh

I would seriously use the mortar about as often as crate if it was invulnerable.

It’s actually REALLY good when used in a condi build and when it stays alive.

I enjoy the mortar quite a bit in wvw fights but the lack of range makes it troublesome as fights tend to move about leaving it only good for the first round of cooldowns which is why I don’t really use it anymore, doubling the range would compensate a bit better for being made of solid cardboard, although this probably doesn’t solve anything for spvp unless perhaps it could about reach another point from mid with tactical positioning.

Also replace launch elixir with a mini supply crate.

Writetyper.1985:

Ok. How about this. Ready? It’s a shocker.

Mortar kit.

Yeah?

Yup, I think everyone is totally behind the idea of an elite kit.

An elite kit just wouldn’t make sense. Elite Skills were designed as something that just gives you a big advantage for a short period of time, but has a rather long cooldown. If you can access the kit all the time, and that’s the way kits work, the skills must not be much stronger than the skills from an utility slot kit.
The only way I think an elite kit would make sense is when it is designed like the tomes from the guardian. So you can use it for let’s say 20 seconds and then you have a 120-180 seconds cooldown.

Elite Mortar Kit could also be handled with an ammunition counter, like the Charrzooka and Conjures.

Simple Ideas(IE, would be easy to implement, fairly straightforward):

Give it some powerful drawback like a speed reduction or a damage taken increase while using it so that you would not want to remain it it for too long.

Give it charges like conjures and make the elite supplies trait add 10 charges instead of range.

Creative Ideas(IE would require some special implementation just for mortar)

Give it a dependent cd that increases the longer you are in the kit. Ex. You use mortar kit for 10 seconds then switch out, it now has a cd of 30 seconds. Use it for 30 seconds and it now has a cd of 90 seconds. Cap out its time in use at 50 seconds which would put the cd at 150 seconds. Seems a little powerful so maybe throw in a speed reduction or some sort of debuff to encourage engis to maintain their kit swapping.

Give the mortar kit hp and maintain the 120 sec cd. This cannot be re-healed and does not regenerate out of combat. While the mortar kit is equipped you receive stability and your mortar will absorb say 20% of the direct damage you take. If the mortar kit is destroyed while you’re using it, its cd is doubled. If it is put away before it is destroyed its cd is halved.

Some of the suggestions seem a bit too powerful but it is an elite skill and it would make sense to make it kit related as there is already an elixir elite and a turret elite.

They should just make it a turret/kit. You put the mortar down like a turret but the overcharge would bring up a skill menu like a kit. As long as you stay within the range of your mortar you can switch to the skills. When you swap to the skill menu the engineers weapon would change to either a radio or remote control.

Armin.8765:

An elite kit just wouldn’t make sense.

Works a the Charr racial elite and is a good skill, so I have to disagree with you. As well, in essence it works as an elementalist elite, because that is all that Conjure Fiery Greatsword actually is.

As well, when it comes to functionality, that is all the morter is. It changes all of your skills as a kit does, except that its skills suck and it immobilizes you.

Oh god, the mortar kit idea just sound awesome.

The use of ammunitions (like the charrzooka) makes sense, but if something like an elite kit eventually comes up, I hope we could switch between the elite kit and other weapons, as long as we have ammo of course. And the cooldown start when there’s no ammo left.
And obviously, you can use it during one minute only, like the fiery greatsword.

I also imagine a backpack full of rockets, clipping through other back items of course.

coglin.1867:

Armin.8765:

An elite kit just wouldn’t make sense.

Works a the Charr racial elite and is a good skill, so I have to disagree with you. As well, in essence it works as an elementalist elite, because that is all that Conjure Fiery Greatsword actually is.

As well, when it comes to functionality, that is all the morter is. It changes all of your skills as a kit does, except that its skills suck and it immobilizes you.

According to your quote you only read the first line of my post. I said/meant that you can’t handle the elite kit like a normal kit (you can use them all the time).
I agree with you that the elite kit could behave like a conjured weapon with limited time and skill usages.

My idea is that the kit is always availiable, because that’s what makes kits unique. It has a limited amount of skill usages and these recover over time, e.g it has 5 usages and you gain 1 usage every 10 seconds. So you can either wait 50 seconds to activate all five skills or just use a skill if you need it. One important thing is that the general strength of all five skills has to be nearly equal and that every skill has situational advantages.

It’s true that the mortar is more a kind of kit then a turret. But an important part of a kit is the mobility and fast access. The mortar provides none of these.
One problem with the mortar is its similarity to the granate kit. Both have very long range and both deal aoe damage. I think the mortar needs a range increase, e.g. 1800 normal and 2200 traited.
Futhermore the autoattack needs a buff, either make crits possible or increase the damage (maybe 50-100%) or give it support effect .

Your making reaching assumptions to so falsly assume because I quoted only one line that it is all I read. Your very incorrect sir. It is all I chose to address in my post, so I quoted it

I partially did so because we already have a kit that is an elite, which function very well in my opinion.

Addressing the rest of your post would be several different discussions. For example, your explanation of what an elite is designed to do in function. Based on the fact that in my experience more elites do not give you any advantage then their are that give you a big advantage, I have to completely disagree with your summery of their design. Although I believe that was their intention, they fell well short in my opinion.

I totally disagree with your opinion about elite skills. Almost every elite gives you a decent advantage, of coures some are situational (just give me a counter-example). And if this was their intention, why shouldn’t we give them a suggestion how they can make a elite work this way?

Armin.8765:

An elite kit just wouldn’t make sense. Elite Skills were designed as something that just gives you a big advantage for a short period of time, but has a rather long cooldown. If you can access the kit all the time, and that’s the way kits work, the skills must not be much stronger than the skills from an utility slot kit.
The only way I think an elite kit would make sense is when it is designed like the tomes from the guardian. So you can use it for let’s say 20 seconds and then you have a 120-180 seconds cooldown.

And this idea of elites is garbage and doesn’t work.

Elites were perfect in gw1, they werent these wannabe long cooldown IWIN buttons and they shouldn’t be here.

I glad to see so many ideas on my thread for mortar buffs! One of the problems with mortar that I think made Arenanet keep it weak is that you can use it all the time. It lasts for exactly how long the cooldown is if it doesn’t die. What do you guys think?

I’m not familiar with the gw1 elite concept how would mortar be affected by a gw1 type elite?

mas.7401:

I’m not familiar with the gw1 elite concept how would mortar be affected by a gw1 type elite?

they were high impact medium cooldown so it would be like being allowed to use mortar barrage 3 times every 20 seconds. elites in GW1 were core to the very loadout you built and were generally available every 8-30sec.

mas.7401:

I’m not familiar with the gw1 elite concept how would mortar be affected by a gw1 type elite?

Elites were often more or less stronger versions of other skills. Their cooldowns weren’t horrendous and useless, usually having reasonably short cooldowns or having a lasting effect of similar duration to the cooldown. Builds were usually based around the elite, instead of them being some tacked on thing like they are now.
In gw1 mortar elite would most likely pretty much be a better version of grenade kit. However, there would be a large selection of elites instead of just 3 so you could actually make varied decisions on what to bring, unlike now where nearly everyone uses the same elite due to how few there are and how useless many of them are.

gimmethegepgun.1284:

mas.7401:

I’m not familiar with the gw1 elite concept how would mortar be affected by a gw1 type elite?

Elites were often more or less stronger versions of other skills. Their cooldowns weren’t horrendous and useless, usually having reasonably short cooldowns or having a lasting effect of similar duration to the cooldown. Builds were usually based around the elite, instead of them being some tacked on thing like they are now.
In gw1 mortar elite would most likely pretty much be a better version of grenade kit. However, there would be a large selection of elites instead of just 3 so you could actually make varied decisions on what to bring, unlike now where nearly everyone uses the same elite due to how few there are and how useless many of them are.

Sadly this game isn’t GW1 based much at all so this is moot lol. Here cooldowns of 30 are reasonable, I remember when I thought MS took forever to recharge. I’m all for more elites, but I think an elite kit would make it extremely biased to engineer since we would pretty much have it up all the time. Anet should make the elite turret a proper turret. We all thought TF2 when the engineer was announced and they even gave us a healing wrench to go with a “dispenser”. Now gimmie the proper turret, and hats XD

Chairman Wang.5930:

gimmethegepgun.1284:

mas.7401:

I’m not familiar with the gw1 elite concept how would mortar be affected by a gw1 type elite?

Elites were often more or less stronger versions of other skills. Their cooldowns weren’t horrendous and useless, usually having reasonably short cooldowns or having a lasting effect of similar duration to the cooldown. Builds were usually based around the elite, instead of them being some tacked on thing like they are now.
In gw1 mortar elite would most likely pretty much be a better version of grenade kit. However, there would be a large selection of elites instead of just 3 so you could actually make varied decisions on what to bring, unlike now where nearly everyone uses the same elite due to how few there are and how useless many of them are.

Sadly this game isn’t GW1 based much at all so this is moot lol. Here cooldowns of 30 are reasonable, I remember when I thought MS took forever to recharge. I’m all for more elites, but I think an elite kit would make it extremely biased to engineer since we would pretty much have it up all the time. Anet should make the elite turret a proper turret. We all thought TF2 when the engineer was announced and they even gave us a healing wrench to go with a “dispenser”. Now gimmie the proper turret, and hats XD

There were elites that were 30 seconds…

It’s basically like they were normal Utility skills here… but stronger because it’s an elite version.

What they should’ve done imo is make the Elite slot a normal utility slot, but w/e you slot in it becomes “elite”.

Has anyone used the mortar recently? The skills seem to not lock up as much and overall feels smoother.

Still could use some work though.

I used it while testing a couple bugs. If it doesn’t lock as much as it used to, it does a kitten good job of seeming like it does – I could lock it up within three skill uses, and keep it locked for thirty-five iterations of Skill #1.

Mortar needs bugfixes, and buffs. This might not be known to many players due to how little this Elite is ever used, but Mortar cannot crit. That seems like a really stupid limitation, that destroys any synergy with on-crit traits and gear and really holds back its potential damage.

The projectile speed is incredibly slow, to the point that evading a mortar is really easy, and requires nothing more then a functional A and D key. And considering how easily gaps are closed, its not hard for someone to get within the deadzone of Mortar. Thats right if someone is to close to you, you cannot shoot at it at that target anymore.

Combine this with it being very squishy and as soon as you pop it, anyone else can just side-strafe and shoot it down at range. Or even outrange it as an Engineer, Ranger or Warrior. Thats how limited its range is.

Essentially, this Elite is worst then most Racial elites.

Few things.
1. Longer Range
2. Bigger Radius
3. Higher Damage
4. Better Mobility
5. Faster Cooldown

I will not touch the walmart mortars we have unless if it gets these simple buffs. It’s just sad that the mortar industry was outsourced. Charrs would never have these walmart mortars pass quality control.

Kagusaki.3176:

Charrs would never have these walmart mortars pass quality control.

Doesn’t the very first heart in Plains of Ashford involve clearing out unexploded mortar shells and testing mortars that explode in your face?

Kagusaki.3176:

Few things.
1. Longer Range
2. Bigger Radius
3. Higher Damage
4. Better Mobility
5. Faster Cooldown

I will not touch the walmart mortars we have unless if it gets these simple buffs. It’s just sad that the mortar industry was outsourced. Charrs would never have these walmart mortars pass quality control.

I agree with number 1-3, but I don’t think the mortar needs mobility, because the mortar is designed for situations where you stay at one place. Also I don’t think the cooldowns are too long (especially if the elite supplies trait would work properly). You have a 6 seconds cooldown on the caltrops shot and a 20 seconds cooldown on a 10 seconds ice field (perma chill without condition duration!).

I personally like the mortar, but its bugs make using it really annoying.

Just 2 things:
- fix the bugs
- remove minimum range requirement (please!)

… and it will be fine in my opinion. Maybe increase the hp/armor a bit.

Alright, so…

Mortar Kit
Range 1500.
Can move while holding kit.
All skills self-root during the cast time.
It generates Ammo slowly over time, 1 shot per 9 seconds, regardless of whether it’s active or not.
Maximum ammo 20 shots.
Thus “cooldown” is effectively 180s, except far more flexible.

Just throwing this out there but, non-projectile attacks that behave like Arrowcarts, good animation then impact.

I’m waiting for Anet to buff the mortar elite skill too. Most people feels like it’s a joke when someone deploys this mortar on the battlefield especially in wvw. It would have been a very good tool during tower defence.

I think the concept of the ability is great. But I agree it should be a bit more viable than it currently is..

“I’m waiting for Anet to buff the mortar elite skill too. Most people feels like it’s a joke when someone deploys this mortar on the battlefield especially in wvw. It would have been a very good tool during tower defence.”

I completely agree. When an Elementalist drops down a flaming greatsword I want to see the same rush to pick it up. Because it is worth using.

Personally, I would use the mortar if the fields didn’t magically stop working once you leave it. The mortar is too bad overall to actually stay in it, so at least the fields should still work. The bleed’n’chill AOE would not be bad.

EDIT: Actually played with the mortar, and have to say it’s not that bad. It’s a bit meh. The range could certainly be a bit further and perhaps a little bit more damage (traited if it has to).

Furthermore, the jamming should really be fixed. Don’t forget to report the bug, assuming Anet actually does something about it.

Another issue is that the projectile doesn’t always make the right arc. When shooting something from over a wall, you often hit the wall itself, because on shorter distances the arc isn’t high enough. That could also use a fix unless it’s “working as intended” (which I highly doubt).

The last issue is, of course, the issue all turrets have. Insane hitboxes. If someone would sneeze on the other side of the map, my mortar would break.

It could be a great supportive weapon in big fights, as the #5 basically means mass cc and mass interruptions. The fields are pretty awesome too.

Some pretty good ideas here! Devs should definitely listen to them cause Mortar right now is pretty much useless and i’m tired of using Elite Crate all the time… They should implement some features you guys posted here or change it to Elite Mobile RPG Bazooka or Stationary Bunker with installed machine gun to kill enemies from distance – lol, just joking right now.

I think the skills it has are pretty good. Maybe a slight buff to range. I have never even looked at the damage component, it could be horrible too. The main problem is mobility IMO. It’s only use seems to be defending keeps/towers; not that this is bad but it should be useful more often.

Mortar can have more than 5 skills since it overrides your utility slots. I think a skill in the 6th slot should be created which would be Pack-up, turns the mortar into a bundle object, with one ability called Deploy, setup the mortar to fire again. To not completely undermine the trade-off of immobility, put them on a 3-5 second cast time.

I honestly have been having some fun with mortar in WvW. The place it shines is defending walls/keeps. It really could use an 1800 or 2000 range given its stationary nature and pretty much only effective in a siege type situation it should have at least slightly better range than rangers longbows do. If they want to keep the 1500 range than it likely needs to get turned into something like the charrzooka and allow you to move around with it.

If it had a bit more range and if some of the bugs were fixed where sometimes it just seems to jam and not want to fire it would have a pretty solid place in WvW. The thing does some incredible damage vs zergs if you can get into the right place to rain down fire and don’t have it bug out on you.

All right guys.. it took me 3 minutes of thinking but I have the solution (because anet loves that “balance” of theirs) .. Here it is-

They won’t raise the damage and range because the ability lasts 180 seconds with fast skill cool downs. We can compromise (because of what a mortar is SUPPOSED to be).

Eliminate all mortar skills except for the #1 skill
Increase impact radius by 20%
Increase minimum range to 600
Increase max range to 2500 (terrain counted is fine – a balance)
Increase damage by 50% (NO CRIT CHANCE)
Turret Hp and all that jazz stays the same
Increase the cooldown of the #1 skill by 5 seconds
The mortar target location will show a red ring to the enemy upon each shot fired.

It sounds horrible you say?? Here’s the kicker
*The engineer can fire this #1 skill while on the move – away from the turret by ‘activating it’ so long as the target location is between 600 and 2500

All problems solved.. it provides additional damage for the engineer.
The engineer is still able to move, dodge, use their regular kits and weapons.
Using marks for the mortar causes the skill to act.. like a mortar.
At the cost of additional utility and dps for the engineer it is something that is easily destroy by the opposing force if they can find the mortar location(follow the rainbow).
Keeping the terrain as a factory in range will ensure the ability is not abused.

It would provide the engy with a tool that is efficient and gives the enemy cause for alarm. Even if the damage isn’t increased all that much it could scare the heck out of a group in WvW “Where the F is he shooting from?!” “Is there a zerg nearby?!”

Just another idea into the void.
One that would be very easy to program/change in the game WINK WINK ANET

Tbh I believe there is nothing anet can do to buff it to what we want and have a balance between engi’s and siege weapons. That’s why I believe they should remove the mortar from us and make it a normal siege weapon for anyone in WvW, that way they CAN buff it up like crazy and make it a siege weapon we all know mortar’s are

As for the empty elite this will open up for us? well we have already come up with our own idea’s! there is loads of kit ideas out there, just choose one of them and make it a elite skill.

Sarah

Mortar needs to be removed from the game and replace by something usefull

I saw an engineer use a mortar once; needless to say I was in Heart of the Mists…

But seriously they’ve got to have the data telling them that people aren’t using the Mortar so there’s no excuse for not doing something about it to make it actually worth using; it should never have been released in such an abysmal state in the first place.

To be perfectly honest though even if they did buff it I really don’t think they’ll be able to make it work taking for the simple fact that it roots you down. The only other elite skill that does this is the Sylvari racial “Take Root” and the reason it’s able to work is because it makes you invulnerable as well; this solution would not work for the Mortar.

We need to either make the mortar into a turret or just replace it entirely.

That…might have been me using the Mortar.
While testing for bugs.
Because according to an ancient patchnote, it’s technically a Turret already.

IMO after the recent updates, Mortar isn’t bad at all. That is, it still has two quirks which make it underpowered:

• Cannot crit. This limitation should really be removed. If it scales properly with power/malice, why not scale it with precision/prowess?
• Jamming. The thing still jams constantly. Every 5th-10th shot. Which eats 2-3 special shots and then spits them all out at once as normal shots. Meh.

Fix the bug and make it crit, and we’d have a very respectable thing for any PvE encounter due to it’s large range and large radius coupled with good combo field access and one of the best freezes.

The only other thing I could think of would be rolling the +100 range baseline, the trait already gives +20% damage and -20% CD, which is pretty big.