Guild Wars 2

As our ignored elite, I decided to make a list of its pros and cons for this elite. Considering it has yet to be touched by patches I hope this gives it a reason to be soon (Or under best circumstances deleted ).

Pros:

• Aoe
• Permanent Stability
• Caltrops shot scales with condition power
• Aoe knock back
• Frost Field
• Able to be shared

Cons:

• Low damage
• Slow projectiles
• Skills do not scale with stats
• Requires user to be immobile
• Takes up an elite slot
• Not affected by turret traits
• Elite supplies trait bugged
• Gets jammed frequently
• Cannot critical at all
• Has minimum range requirement
• 2 Second cooldown on skill 1
• Range affected by vertical distance
• Knockbacks by harpies in fractal still push you out of the mortar (Probably all knockback sources?)
• Costs 30 skill points to unlock. -Acts as a skill point trap for beginners.-
• Unable to use skills 6-9 while on it
• Projectiles hit the ceillin inside areas with low vertical height.
• Auto “fixes” camera
• Always targeted by enemies first ( even before player )
• Low HP
• No way to defend it
• No defense vs melee
• Several View issues when placed next to an object/wall.
• Can be feared through mortar stability

(Probably true) Facts about mortar:

• No one has ever been downed by a mortar shot
• Engineers have been known to take out mortar before downed, presumably to spend the last bit of their time with stability
• Wintersday toy mortars hurt more.
• Worst elite in game beating out the Racial skill Artillery Barrage by a longshot
• Its bad design shows evidence that it was made by drunk norn engineers

I was testing out mortar shots (Skill 1) and even though the damage increases on the tooltip with more power, the damage on the practice dummies in L.A. was always the same at 1156.

Penguin.5197:

As our ignored elite, I decided to make a list of its pros and cons for this elite. Considering it has yet to be touched by patches I hope this gives it a reason to be soon (Or under best circumstances deleted ).

Pros:

• Aoe
• Permanent Stability

Cons:

• Low damage
• Slow projectiles
• Skills do not scale with stats
• Requires user to be immobile
• Takes up an elite slot
• Not affected by turret traits
• Elite supplies trait bugged
• Gets jammed frequently
• Cannot critical at all
• Has minimum range requirement
• 2 Second cooldown on skill 1
• Range affected by vertical distance
• Knockbacks by harpies in fractal still push you out of the mortar
• Costs 30 skill points to unlock. -Acts as a skill point trap for beginners.-

(Probably true) Facts about mortar:

• No one has ever been downed by a mortar shot
• Engineers have been known to take out mortar before downed, presumably to spend the last bit of their time with stability
• Wintersday toy mortars hurt more.
• Worst elite in game beating out the Racial skill Artillery Barrage by a longshot

agreed with everything

The Only possible way you could kill someone with this is if you were on a full condi build as condi damage is the only thing that scales for some reason.

Didn’t notice that, at least you can get some damage out of Caltrops shot ha~

Yup this needs to be changed to a Rocket Launcher or Grenade lobber.
Or a portable backpack mortar kit with stability and movement reduction.

I absolutely love the concept as is; it’s a portable siege engine that wreaks absolute hell on groups of people on top of working great over long range.
The only problem is with the actual numbers including many, many bugs.
I did once kill quite a few people with it, though in hindsight is was likely mostly the Caltrops.
It was in an SPvP map; both teams were being idiots and just skirmishing en mass in the center. I got up on a ledge overlooking their little arena and started raining death.
I must’ve gotten at least several kills before they caught on and a thief took me out.
Just saying, it was really fun while it lasted.

Grimwolf.7163:

I absolutely love the concept as is; it’s a portable siege engine that wreaks absolute hell on groups of people on top of working great over long range.

The concept is great though I don’t see it quite yet living up to its long range nature. I would say its base 1400 range is quite debate able over how good that actually is. Screenshot below shows its farthest range under best conditions (on flat land), and that distance is easily traversed by a gap closer, probably faster than what it takes for a mortar shot to hit the ground.
Granted there are times when mortar can shine (Like your story) but those instances are few and far in between

While I do agree that it does need something (PvE really), it still has the occasional use. For example, in WvW (if you care about that aspect), it makes for decent point defense. The barrage skill (#5?) is hilarious if you use it on a bridge right over a large pit and knock everyone down into it, or use it on the corner of a keep/SM and push everyone around. The healing skill is okay for your team if you’re attacking or holding a spot, along with the freeze/caltrops for holding.

it needs at least 1800-2000 range since as the OP said terrain elevation counts towards its range therefore its actual range is somewhat of 1200-1000 in elevated places

Wait, I assumed that just meant 100 down would be just like 100 forward, say if you’re shooting off a cliff.
But you’re making it sound more like they double up. So if you shot up a hill that’s 1000 up and 1000 forward it’d register as 2000 instead of just 1000 like it should.

here are some more :P

Pros

• Great for interrupting bosses
• Frost Field

CONS

• Auto “fixes” camera
• Always targeted by enemies first ( even before player )
• Low HP
• No way to defend it
• No defense vs melee
• Several View issues when placed next to an object/wall.

Love the skills, here are some ideas;

1)hijack the code from Fiery Great Sword and turn mortar into an environmental weapon dominated by charges, and allows player to move

2)WARNING: Extremily creative but really realistic

We have the code to remotely activate ability on summons ( minions/spirit weapons), also the code for Kits and Turrets, so why not combine them all. result…;

A ground-targeting turret. Same skills, skills are activated remotely using a kit-like feature called Remote Control which will either follow the player’s target or a ground targeting format.

additional

• Reduce toughness so its not always the enemy’s first meal
• Re-work skill #1 to provide more utility at a longer cool down
• Do not allow for auto attack ( all skills must be activated by player )
• Auto destroy if player walks out 1,000-1,500 range

PRO:

• truly deserving of the title “Elite Turret”
• Allows for more versatile and strategic play-style.
• We engineer love to press skills! make us happy
• Would not put in danger the balance of either WvW/sPvp/PvE or Dungeons

CON

• Since all the code already exist, it would steal 1 hour from a developer’s life.

It has horrible damage and the kitten mortar jams all the friggin time. I’m tired of it. Don’t ever try to use it for damage with #1 auto. It doesn’t work that way, its completely awful.

I’ve really found only 1 or 2 uses for this.

To pull out, fire frost field, and maybe barrage/caltrops/heal where it would be helpful. The frost field is pretty powerful. If this paper mortar somehow manages to stay up until frost field or barrage are off cooldown, it means I get a two-fer. a field of frost combined with those other cruddy utility skills is arguably better than a supply crate some of the time in PvE.

There was one time. ONE, count them, zero, one times where I found this relatively useful in WvW. When we were attacking a keep, all the enemies coordinated a rush out to wipe us. While they were piled and colliding with out zerg, I pulled out the mortar, fired the barrage, and somehow it hit everyone ruined their momentum, softened them up, and suddenly a small zerg was in a downed state on the floor ready to be stomped. I will never be able to reproduce this occurrence.

I imagine that blowing the fields from the mortar and forgetting it might be a useful tactic in WvW. There are probably few things as disruptive to a zerg as a large frost field or caltrops on unique terrain, but I’ve never been silly enough in WvW to try.

The kitten mortar jams all the friggin time though. I’m tired of it.

Edit: I payed 30 skillpoints for this?

I used it when I was running SE before the changes to it. I had to do a LOT of SE for armor. It could fire across the gap at the beginning before bridge comes up, and took out the walls pretty well. Mainly though, for path 1 I could get under the first boss, use my grenade kit to hit him and give the mortar to a warrior or whatever to help with the boss. Beyond things that blatantly exploit ground targetting? No, it is awful. A joke.

I think a big problem is that it is available permanently and thus is supposed to work about as well as a normal weapon. Firstly, it doesn’t, even for AoE it isn’t very good. But I also think that elites should feel big and special. I recommend making it 60 sec up, 180 sec recharge. Battles rarely leave the thing along that long anyway. This way it could be a time of powerful AoE destruction. I like how big the effects are, but fix the jamming and make the attacks hit harder.

While we are talking about bad elites, can we get some help with Elixir X too? Yes, we get two effects at a smaller cooldown, but they are weird and feel forced. I take a potion… and either turn into the hulk or a tornado? Tornado? What? I actually use elixir X and I like the tornado effect, if I get berserker I just hit the stomp attack and exit out. In theory they both fill similar roles of making you effective in melee for a short time, but they just feel random and stolen. Mostly because they are. I would like something that feels unique to engineers. Change the forms up a bit to make them feel more potion-y.

I used the mortar while I was farming Zho’qafa catacombs before everyone found out final rest dropped on the shadow behemoth and I was doing pointless grinding of a long and hard group event for greens. Chill and basilisk venom are the only forms of CC that work on abominations and having a frost field up on the champions really helped. I got nothing for it, but at least now I really know how to work the champion abomination spawn in CoE. When the group whines and moans that the abomination is coming to disassemble, clean, and oil their clocks I just pull out the mortar and mail everyone a ghost pepper popper which applies chill on critical at night. It’s always nighttime in CoE.

I think Elixir X needs work too. There’s nothing like going into an ultimate form and doing way less damage and not having defensive options. I think that as the hulk I should be doing more damage with punches than what I can muster on the kitten toolkit. The tornado is alright though. If you do it at the right time, it can really disrupt enemy zergs in WvW. In PvE however, it’s an AoE that makes you throw the targets around and separate them. Using it in a dungeon to spread the enemies around when everyone is trying to stack them up to AoE is a good way to change people’s minds about giving engineers a chance at grouping.

possible improvements, without redesigning the darn thing which should be the REAL solution:

- increase the range to 1500 untraited and 1800 traited. If it doesn’t outrange the max player range than it will always end up weak simply because it is not mobile.
Just hold an engineer duel where one uses mortar and the other grenades to see what I mean.

- the heal and knockback have to be usable at min range.
When the mortar is melee attacked, there is no defense. That’s when you could use the heal and the knockback.

- the global cooldown has to be lowered to normal skill cooldown.

My dream solution: make the thing mobile, like a temporary weapon kit.
A shoulder carried bazooka.
We all know the Charrzooka is better in design than the Mortar.

Chickenshoes.6250:

I used the mortar while I was farming Zho’qafa catacombs before everyone found out final rest dropped on the shadow behemoth and I was doing pointless grinding of a long and hard group event for greens. Chill and basilisk venom are the only forms of CC that work on abominations and having a frost field up on the champions really helped. I got nothing for it, but at least now I really know how to work the champion abomination spawn in CoE. When the group whines and moans that the abomination is coming to disassemble, clean, and oil their clocks I just pull out the mortar and mail everyone a ghost pepper popper which applies chill on critical at night. It’s always nighttime in CoE.

I think Elixir X needs work too. There’s nothing like going into an ultimate form and doing way less damage and not having defensive options. I think that as the hulk I should be doing more damage with punches than what I can muster on the kitten toolkit. The tornado is alright though. If you do it at the right time, it can really disrupt enemy zergs in WvW. In PvE however, it’s an AoE that makes you throw the targets around and separate them. Using it in a dungeon to spread the enemies around when everyone is trying to stack them up to AoE is a good way to change people’s minds about giving engineers a chance at grouping.

the thing is: a grenadier can keep up chill even better than the mortar, especially if he uses runes or sigils effecting chill as well. Or condition duration in general.

That’s the real downfall of the mortar: anything the mortar can do, a grenadier can do better.
Except the heal and the knockback.

Not saying the mortar is as bad in pve as it is in pvp, but still no elite should be outperformed by a grandmaster trait so much. Elite has to be elite…

google.3709:

Pros

• Great for interrupting bosses

I never considered it to be a good interruptor, Care to explain more on that?

Penguin.5197:

I never considered it to be a good interruptor, Care to explain more on that?

He probably means the concussion barrage is good for removing defiant stacks. Charrzooka does it better though.

I use it in the cat fractal, against the harpies who knock you off the platforms. It saves my kitten every time there.

I use it on WvW when defending a keep / tower. Once (yes, only once) I remember firing off the barrage (#5) while defending Bay on our borderland. Three guys flew off the cliff and plunged to their deaths. That was funny xD

Oh, and on WvWvW, its also useful to take out burning oil fast. Try using the #5 skill on it, does 575 damage for every shell that hits.

Still, a useless elite. And I haven’t been silly enough to try it out in PvE or SPvP.. And its fragile as hell!

Well, engineer clas is almost the Team Fortress 2 class:

We get the turrets from the ENGINEER (the charr says “Dispenser operational” when he lands a healing turret)

The flamethrower from the pyro. I mean… we have the air blast, too. And the flame-hadouken!

We bought the bomb kit and the grenade Launcher from the DEMOMAN, for some good booze.XD

We stole the Elixir Gun from the MEDIC: heals and darts!

Our rifle is a shotgun with explosives jump: it has SOLDIER written all over it, maggots!

And our tool kit makes us boink people like SCOUT would, while we have perma-swiftness and double speed.XD

What we are missing? The SPY and the SNIPER, but we can play those guys as engineers (even if we can throw elixirs as the sniper throws jarate).

But, worst of all, we are missing the HEAVY! The most awesome symbol in the entire game! We have to fix it.

How?

Time to riplace the mortar with a MINIGUN!XD

Yeah, we too want to touch Sasha!XD

Myros.4675:

I use it on WvW when defending a keep / tower. Once (yes, only once) I remember firing off the barrage (#5) while defending Bay on our borderland. Three guys flew off the cliff and plunged to their deaths. That was funny xD

Ha knocking down people is always fun~

redslion.9675:

What we are missing? The SPY and the SNIPER, but we can play those guys as engineers (even if we can throw elixirs as the sniper throws jarate).

But, worst of all, we are missing the HEAVY! The most awesome symbol in the entire game! We have to fix it.

How?

Time to riplace the mortar with a MINIGUN!XD

Yeah, we too want to touch Sasha!XD

We can cloak (although limited) so we just need a minigun and sniper kit and we’re set!

I personally would not care one way or another for a sniper kit. I like the idea of a mini-gun kit, but not at the cost of the mortar if possible. The mortar has some great potential, but it’s range holds it back.

The Mortar is a Turret so it should act like a Turret.
I would be happy if they changed it so you can place the Mortar and than it just fires on your location for a set period of time in a firing sequence of 1-2,1-3,1-4,1-5.

I think Engineers have enough support options, we need some better personal assistance.

CriSPeH.8512:

The Mortar is a Turret so it should act like a Turret.
I would be happy if they changed it so you can place the Mortar and than it just fires on your location for a set period of time in a firing sequence of 1-2,1-3,1-4,1-5.

I think Engineers have enough support options, we need some better personal assistance.

the mortar is a nice concept it just needs a bit of a kickstart say about 25% damage increase except for the #5 skill and about 2000 range so it can actually be used to defend keeps and such in wvw

Rezzet.3614:

the mortar is a nice concept it just needs a bit of a kickstart say about 25% damage increase except for the #5 skill and about 2000 range so it can actually be used to defend keeps and such in wvw

Yup just those two things would help make the mortar more viable.

Remove mortar, add mortar kit with same skills, but on much longer cooldowns (essentially giving us a potential 5th kit, with some decent abilities on ~70-90 second cooldowns).

Are there any racial elite skills that are worse than mortar?

Hmm, Kalan, I would probably say the Human racial skill: Avatar of Melandru. That skill is USELESS, with bad damage, a useless somewhat heal skill- thing, and makes you move slower. Basically, by activating it, you’re sending out a flare that says: “Oh, please kill me, I can’t hurt you, I can’t heal myself, and I can’t run away”. On topic, instead of getting the mortar skill, I think we should totally delete that skill and get a stationary gatling gun- style turret that plants us in place, but rapid- fires bullets.

@Korran

Well, with avatar you do get 20 second mobile stability that works as a stun breaker, no cast, also you get 4k+ toughness and more HP!

it is not an attack oriented skill, and it’s abilities are alright, its just that casting time so basically you can go in, use the skill you want ( usually #3 or 5# ) and get out :P

Mortar, sadly changes you’re camera, roots you to the ground, and its glitchy so if you need to dodge out quickly, you wont! and sometimes you can’t move for the entire 120 unless you use overcharged shot

Ah yeah, you’re right google. I completely forgot about the stability and tank- traits that come along with avatar. Hmmm, back to finding the most useless racial elite!

I don’t think the mortar has any pro’s. Also I was messing around with it during a siege today and was feared off of it either it’s bugged or I wasn’t on it and thought I was.

Fear goes through Stability.

Grimwolf.7163:

Fear goes through Stability.

It shouldn’t be able to, it says right there on skill description it makes you immune to fear.

Penguin.5197:

Grimwolf.7163:

Fear goes through Stability.

It shouldn’t be able to, it says right there on skill description it makes you immune to fear.

Yeah that’s what I was going by. Guess I should know better than to believe tool tips in this game.

Penguin.5197:

Grimwolf.7163:

Fear goes through Stability.

It shouldn’t be able to, it says right there on skill description it makes you immune to fear.

I think it’s just a spelling error, he forgot the ‘our’ stability! :P

but yea, it’s just a flaw, the turret doesn’t actually give us stability (code wise), the turret simply has stability and it “shares” it us, so just think about this way, if you’re being knocked back, you grab onto the turret and stay in place, but fear actually causes us to “let go” of the turret and lose the shared stability.

They made it that way so people wouldn’t find a way to glitch 120s stability ( that would be awesome! ) or so Mesmer wouldn’t steal 2 min stability since it could be overly abused on WvW! Probably…

The only pro it has is you can let someone else use it. Which might give someone like a theif who cant fire that far a way to contribute. For the engineer itself, it is absolute crap. It has no room in spvp, but is obviously made for WvW use, but imo should be treated like a kit on the ground and not destructable.

As it stands now Supply depot is THE elite for spvp. Untill they fix elixer X to not just be a crappy coppycat of element/warrior elites, and not have RNG attached to it.

We have one elite we can use. Best part about supply vs other elites? Doesnt require us to not be able to use our utilitys and give up our weapon skills. Works its magic while giving us full access to our abilities.

The funny part is our elites are so bad in general, we tend to say things like “mortar isn’t anywhere near as good as supply drop” often forgetting how rubbish supply drop is compared to say daggerstorm.

Kalan.9705:

The funny part is our elites are so bad in general, we tend to say things like “mortar isn’t anywhere near as good as supply drop” often forgetting how rubbish supply drop is compared to say daggerstorm.

Idk about that, supply drop gives a 2 sec stun, med packs to heal and turrets for damage. Overall its pretty good, a little too good for engies, sometimes I’m afraid its a possible candidate for nerfs :/

Yeah, but you’re forgetting it has a massive 3 minute cooldown, only as much healing as a regular heal skill, and the couple turrets die easy as hell.

I say either give the mortar 1600 range with 2000 traited, or make the mortar automated like other turrets, putting skill 5 as the overcharge.

Grimwolf.7163:

Yeah, but you’re forgetting it has a massive 3 minute cooldown, only as much healing as a regular heal skill, and the couple turrets die easy as hell.

Sometimes, that’s all you need. Sometimes you need an extra stun to keep that guy from running away in wvw. Sometimes you need a quick heal when your heal skill and elixer small is in cd. Sometimes, you need the boss to target the turrets giving you that precious 3-5 seconds (slow mob attack ftw) until you can do what you need to do.

penatbater.4710:

Grimwolf.7163:

Yeah, but you’re forgetting it has a massive 3 minute cooldown, only as much healing as a regular heal skill, and the couple turrets die easy as hell.

Sometimes, that’s all you need. Sometimes you need an extra stun to keep that guy from running away in wvw. Sometimes you need a quick heal when your heal skill and elixer small is in cd. Sometimes, you need the boss to target the turrets giving you that precious 3-5 seconds (slow mob attack ftw) until you can do what you need to do.

You’re not comparing it against anything though. Compared to most other elites, it’s bad.
For the effect, it could easily have a 60-90 second recharge.

penatbater.4710:

Grimwolf.7163:

Yeah, but you’re forgetting it has a massive 3 minute cooldown, only as much healing as a regular heal skill, and the couple turrets die easy as hell.

Sometimes, that’s all you need. Sometimes you need an extra stun to keep that guy from running away in wvw. Sometimes you need a quick heal when your heal skill and elixer small is in cd. Sometimes, you need the boss to target the turrets giving you that precious 3-5 seconds (slow mob attack ftw) until you can do what you need to do.

That’s not a lot from a skill with such a large cooldown.
c.f. Guardian’s Renewed Focus which gives 3s Invulnerability (to everything whether it switches agro or not) and refreshes their Aegis/Might/Burning/Healing virtues, and all this happens twice as often as we get Supply Crate.

Still, Supply Crate is our best Elite . . .

If we wanted to compare supply crate, it should be to other skills with equal cooldown.
Rampage, guardian tomes, thieves guild, tornado, fire greatsword, moa morph, lich form and plaque.
I find that untraited, supply crate is way better than rampage, tornado and fgs in a bigger variety of situations and is comparable enough to thieves guild (Based on my own spvp experience that I can counter thieves guild with supply drop). And when traited for more supply drops and rifled turrets barrels, it can easily become one of the best 180 sec cd skills and destroys builds with low defense.

Supply crate is excellent. AE 2 sec stun /nuke + healing, +its a blast finisher, + every turret that dies can explode, +net turret immobalizes.

You can trait it so turrets take more damage and hit harder making an even better elite, if you pick up exploding turrets…you get 3-4 AE 1200 damage nukes that knockback ONTOP of the ae nuke/stun.

Also unlike gaurdian tomb, elixer X, mortor, lich form, etc…..it does all this without requiring us to give up our weapon/utility skills for a duration….we can continue to use them while supply does its job.

IMO every elite should work MORE like supply crate.

EDIT: also turrets are not in the greatest place right now, they only recently were allowed to scale off condition damage. Once they get brought up to where they need to be, supply crate will most likely be too good and need nerfed.

Thank you for this post i always wanted to get around to this post so thank you.

Supply dro kitten till a very long cool down for turrets that die in under a quarter of a second that never manage to get a shot off, or shot at something out of range los an object or a pet.

If you’re going mention turret trait you need to be even handed and acknowledge how they are spread across the trait trees in a very inaccessible way, and only elevate turrets from utterly terrible to very terrible. In builds that lose the capacity to do other and better things by taking turrets.

Anyway this thread is about how much worse mortar is. Does anyone have a candidate for a racial elite that isn’t better than Mortar?

What would actually make Mortar helpful isn’t just a distance increase, but also a way to knock enemies back from you. Perhaps make some adjustments so that #5 causes a “fouled shot” to land right in front of you, knocking back enemies a good distance (800?) so you can effectively use the mortar on them.

Sporadicus.1028:

What would actually make Mortar helpful isn’t just a distance increase, but also a way to knock enemies back from you. Perhaps make some adjustments so that #5 causes a “fouled shot” to land right in front of you, knocking back enemies a good distance (800?) so you can effectively use the mortar on them.

Or make it a turret/kit hybrid. allow us to ground target turret wherever we want and give us a kit “Control Remote” which we can access anytime!! same skills and no auto attack for turret!