Guild Wars 2

If you haven’t seen this skill in action, and I suspect many haven’t since engineers never use it, I will explain how it works to you.

You press the 0 key and use your long cooldown elite skill, Mortar, which places a mortar tube at your feet. This object is immovable and unrepairable. While manning it, you cannot move or use any other skill such as heals, utility skills, or toolbelt skills. The first time you man the tube, you will be immediately struck by how short the range is. It has a range of just 1400. This can be buffed to 1500 with the trait “Rifled Turret Barrels” but the trait “Elite Supplies” has no effect despite saying that it increases the range of Mortar in the tooltip. So the highest range you can achieve with this ability is 1500, which is also the range at which you can throw grenades and rangers can shoot longbows. Of course grenade engineers and longbow rangers can move while doing this and they don’t have to use an elite skill to match the range of your mortar. Other classes that don’t have weapons with range of 1500 only have to dodge roll towards you and they are close enough to hit you and your tube.

The first time an enemy attacks your tube you will be shocked at how quickly it dies. 3 attacks from a Ranger’s longbow are enough to take it out.

For an elite skill that immobilizes you, has short range and is easily destroyed by a handful of basic attacks, you would expect the damage to be great. But sadly this is not the case either. The damage of the abilities would be significant if the range was doubled. But when you consider that the average mortar tube lasts less than 10 seconds before it is destroyed or you are killed, you only have time for a few shots. When you shoot, a giant red circle appears on the ground and your enemies scatter, often dodge rolling towards you which not only nullifies the damage but puts them close enough to shoot your tube. Dodge rolling isn’t even necessary however because the travel time of the mortar rounds is ridiculously slow. Enemies that are crippled can easily walk out of the AoE. If you are lucky enough to land a shot that does damage, congratulations! You have taken about 5-10% of the average enemies hp with the #1 skill, and about 15% with the number 5 skill.

As far as traits go, the mortar traits are in the least convenient location, the inventions tree. If you want to get the most out of the 2-3 rounds you can launch before your tube is destroyed or you are killed, you want to build for direct damage glass cannon. Unfortunately for you, the important mortar traits are in the 2nd and 3rd tier of a purely defensive line which gives you toughness and healing. At this point, the trait Elite Supplies doesn’t even work on mortar, and Rifled Turret Barrels only increases the range from 1400-1500. So since the traits are so awful you are probably better off skipping them and spending all your points in explosives, firearms, or tools for bigger damage.

There are a few reasons, aside from how awful the skill is, why engineers don’t use mortar. One is that the grenade kit has the same range as mortar, does better damage, and allows you to move while attacking. The other is that by taking mortar you aren’t taking Supply Drop, which is amazing in many ways, or Elixir X which is engineers only source of stability. So the opportunity cost of taking Mortar is very high.

Mortar needs immediate attention, Anet. Please give substantial buffs to the range or just remove the skill and give us something we can use, like a suit of power armor or a robotic pet which I see requested frequently in this forum.

EDIT: Thanks to DootmasterX and Karast for helping formulate an idea that seems like a winner. Instead of being a destructable object that is placed and can never be moved, make Mortar in to an actual kit that behaves the same as any other kit except you are immobile while using it. With this setup it would only need minor range buffs and maybe a bit more damage on #1 to be competitive with Grenade Kit and Supply Drop. But heck, I would take a Mortar Kit as is and let the devs fine tune the range and damage later. This would also make it viable in PvE, maybe even sPvP. I don’t see how this would take too much reprogramming from the devs that are surely very busy, so it seems a realistic request on that front as well. Whaddya guys think?

Mortar saved my kitten yesterday. Was doing the borderland jumping puzzle and 5 or so gankers REALLY wanted to catch up to me and kill me. Toward the end I knew I wouldn’t be able to climb up that last wall while staying out of range of their attacks, so I dropped a mortar, and as they were descending the platforms that lead to that last wall, I hit ’em with #5 and blasted all 5 of them into the water, allowing me to get the key, and eventually, the chest.

Not saying it doesn’t need work, but the amount of hate directed at the Mortar seems a tad out of proportion; it has its uses.

The amount of uses the mortar has are extremely, and i mean EXTREMELY limited. Its not a total piece of crap but as it stands right now it has no place being an elite skill. Think that is why there is so much outrage. The only uses I have found for it are in WvW, but even the uses there are limited.

The mortar is situational. I mainly use it for WvW Tower/Keep defense. It is used inside the keep facing the door, you use the mortar to do AoE dmg to the door eventually killing the ram and hurting enemies while keeping safe inside the keep. There are also Towers that have bridges the enemy must walk across to get to the lord, the AoE knockback skill is clutch here as you can knock off a good amount of people.

This skill is solely used for defensive purposes and should very rarely be used in open fights or sPvP. All engineer skills have a time and place, you just need to think it through a bit.

Right…next time I plan on being chased up a jumping puzzle by 5 people that somehow can’t time a dodge roll on the slowest moving projectiles in the game, I’ll pack mortar with me. Seriously though, if we are trying this hard to imagine situations in which a skill could theoretically be used, we aren’t talking about balance anymore. We don’t get to just tack mortar on to our builds at no cost….it comes at the cost of a different elite skill, most likely supply drop, which has myriad uses everywhere in the game, especially in WvW and specifically in keep defense. So when the opportunity cost is that high to get a skill that is inferior in just about every way to grenade kit, there are fundamental design issues that need to be addressed.

I don’t normally like saying ‘worst’ or ‘best’.

I can’t think of anything worse… weird.

The concept is awesome and it’s got its times when it’s not-great-but-at-least-not-totally-god-awful, but it badly needs some work.

Basilisk Venom is pretty terrabad Lyuben. And the Flesh Golem for Necromancer is pretty kitten poor too.

Basilisk Venom, Flesh Golem, and Mortar are probably the three worst in the game. (Not counting Racials)

Basalisk venom is actually pretty useful for certain builds. It has a low cooldown so it works well with the lyssa ruin buffs, it’s unbreakable, and with poison share it can be very useful in a group. It’s useful for backstab thieves too because it keeps the enemy in place.

I’d say the ranger elite spirit takes the place of basilisk venom. It’s so slow and dies so fast that bleh.

Division.9618:

Basalisk venom is actually pretty useful for certain builds. It has a low cooldown so it works well with the lyssa ruin buffs, it’s unbreakable, and with poison share it can be very useful in a group. It’s useful for backstab thieves too because it keeps the enemy in place.

I’d say the ranger elite spirit takes the place of basilisk venom. It’s so slow and dies so fast that bleh.

Can be broken now since today’s update just letting you know.

Aristio.2784:

Division.9618:

Basalisk venom is actually pretty useful for certain builds. It has a low cooldown so it works well with the lyssa ruin buffs, it’s unbreakable, and with poison share it can be very useful in a group. It’s useful for backstab thieves too because it keeps the enemy in place.

I’d say the ranger elite spirit takes the place of basilisk venom. It’s so slow and dies so fast that bleh.

Can be broken now since today’s update just letting you know.

So now the thief has a 1 second stun for an elite skill?

Arenanet’s attempts to nerf the thief’s insane burst damage is like a blind person trying to hit a target from 20 yards away with a slingshot.

Thieves have a 1.5second stun, yes.

if this change into a mortar kit how do you feel ?
i won’t like it to be

Whenever people talk about the uses of Mortar to them its usually one of two things

1) It lets me put it down for someone else who lacks long-range in WvW (Thief/Guardian)
2) Its knockback saved my kitten

Well 1#, its OUR elite. It should be usefull to US. Its benefit shouldnt rely on a highly situational situation where its merely convenient to someone else.
And 2#, that is about the only great thing about Mortar. So why not change the racial to “Artillery Barrage; Fire a barrage of high explosives from a mobile mortar at the target location. Applying Bleed, Cripple and knocking back enemies” Animation could be your Engineer whipping out the mortar to channel a barrage over X seconds. With a much faster projectile speed over a large area perhaps akin to Rangers Longbow 5-thingy or Ele’s Meteor Shower.

THAT would be a usefull Elite.

Aristio.2784:

Basilisk Venom is pretty terrabad Lyuben. And the Flesh Golem for Necromancer is pretty kitten poor too.

Basilisk Venom, Flesh Golem, and Mortar are probably the three worst in the game. (Not counting Racials)

Fail. Others pointed out basilisk venom “which was nerfed for a reason”. And flesh golem…really? How many necromancers have you seen use it? I swear every necro i see has it out at some point. mortar? i’ve never seen it used but twice in WvW “granted i dont wvw often at all” outside of that, never seen it cept of course myself as i whip it out as a joke sometimes.

As necromancer is my other main class played, flesh golem is extremely useful in leveling and is very powerful in spvp. You get constant cripple it does good damage and has a high burst knockdown attack that will flat out kill someone if you get them up against a wall (not to mention its short cd so its always up). How is this even remotely compareable to mortar? Try to dig deeper for a worste profession elite….elixer x is worste than both the ones you just mentioned imo.

if my engineer had a high damage/tanky pet with a giant ae knockdown (over 1400 damage non crit, can situationally hit multiple times O.O) that applied cripple instead of mortar, i would not be complaining.

Flesh Golem is actually very very good. The problem here is not the skill but AI. It often does not attack at all… .

ya, just responded to a post about that issue on the necro forums. the AI is dissapointing for pet users everywhere.

Even in WvW the mortar is only good for its skill 5 and the projectile arc that bypass line of sight requirement. Skill 3 ‘Launch Elixir’ combo field has a sub-par 33% up-time compared to the Elixir Gun’s ‘Super Elixir’ which has 50% up-time. It is a utter waste of a skill slot on the open field in most settings. This elite skill is basically a horrible poor man’s version of arrow cart when you really need one.

So if they really want mortar to be a poor man’s arrow cart, it needs either a big damage boost or range increase (arrow cart’s range is 2500). Other-wise it’s fairly useless because it’s gone as soon as a spec’ed ranger or elementalist sees you and target the wall.

Absolutely agree. Poor damage compared to alternatives, poor range given its immobility, fragility and easy to avoid.

Engineers really got the short end of the elite stick. Mortar simply sucks, Elixir X is a random version of 2 other elite skills (lame and you’ll never get what you hope for) and Supply drop, while our best elite, is still extremely underwhelming.

Supply Drop is not underwhelming at all. Elixir X and Mortar though, are pretty terrible. Elixir X is partially terrible because Rampage is terrible, but Mortar is absolutely useless. Well, I suppose if someone in WvW forgot to bring a ranged weapon you could give the Mortar…. but that’s such a silly situation.

To be honest the fact other people can ninja my mortar annoys the kitten out of me! Why can’t those kittens go get their own kittening mortar by rolling a kittening engineer!

I am tired of it! It’s not even that good but all these kittens, and kittenettes are just ninja’ing right and left before I even get the chance to fire off an ability!

Supply drop is good from a support / utility stand point. Nice AoE stun, some turrets to soak up aoe damage, and a nice bit of healing from medpacs.

But it is not a damaging elite, neither is elixir x regardless of what you get.

I’d gladly trade either for a machine gun kit ((see char engineer concept art)) a machine gun turret or a dredge like mech-suit.

Heck just make elixir X give the effects of all our elixirs minus S. C, R, U, B and H. That would be well worth the elite spot. ./wink

Stunning, absolute garbage.

The mortar serves 1 purpose: infinite stability against world bosses.

I discovered that if you take the third route of Ascalon Catacombs, while transformed as a ghost, you can’t use your mortar since you’re transformed.

Me too was tricked into spending skill point in mortar. What a let down. The only benefit it offers is to trick noobish player into beliving it is a real seige machine and hence they don’t dare to come near.

Have to admit I’ve only used this elite on very few occasions, mostly when I was playing with a straight up turret focused build. As it stands it’s outperformed by the grenade kit, more so if someone has traited into it. I’d say there are two options that could improve the skill:

1. Apply high defensive buff to the player while they’re using it, (I’d even suggest applying invulnerability) so that the mortar has to be destroyed before the player can be harmed.

2. Make the mortar into a true heavy turret with it’s AI possibly tweaked so that it’d focus fire on the largest group of valid targets within it’s range.

The first suggestion may appear OP but given how quickly in a PvP situation that the mortar could be dealt with, it’d force people to rethink how to take a bunkered engineer (liberal use of AoE for example). The second one is my personal preference since I’d much prefer the turret to be automated rather than player controlled, so then if I use it I know that it’ll be doing something useful rather than having some bugger nick it when I’ve just deployed it.

I always thought that there should be two ‘modes’ to this Elite. You can place it on the ground when you first build it, and it has increased range (maybe fix the slow moving projectiles at little) or you can pick it up and use it like a PBAoE bazooka similar to blunderbus.

@DootmasterX

Sounds great, but maybe too ambitious. I’m sure the devs have a lot on their plates right now. Just buffing mortar range up to 2000 base and 2500 with traits wouldn’t take them much time and would give engineers a reason to use their 30 point elite skill. Don’t get me wrong tho, your idea sounds amazing and I would love to see it implemented at some point.

I find it quite useful every now and then, Usually just for defense in WvW, they are slightly better than grenades by giving up the ability to move.

Esrever.8613:

I find it quite useful every now and then, Usually just for defense in WvW, they are slightly better than grenades by giving up the ability to move.

I mean, you certainly can use mortar, in the same way that you can use a unicycle to get to work each day, buy why would you when you have a ferrari in the garage? I guess if you like a challenge then go for it, but nades do much more damage, not to mention applying tons of vulnerability stacks and allowing movement. You also then get to have supply drop, which is very useful in all tasks in WvW and every other game mode.

Mortar has numerous issues, but these two prevent it from being useful in sPvP:

1. Destructable
2. Has a deadzone

Make Mortar indestructable. An enemy can easily pressure someone off Mortar by attacking the player, and the player will want to get off Mortar to heal.

Make Mortar have no deadzone. Mortar would actually be pretty useful for a bunker build, except as it is now you have to place Mortar really far away from the circle you’re trying to defend.

Aside from these two issues, Elite Supplies and Mortar need to work some day. It’s been bugged since inception.

Keep in mind that the deadzone / low hp might be part of the balancing that allows us to have mortar up for so long.

When it doesn’t die you can have it up nearly 100% of the time.

Something no other elite can do.

Think what your happen if thieves could chain dagger storm or guardians their tomes.

So mortars weaknesses might be a part of it’s balancing.

Karast.1927:

Keep in mind that the deadzone / low hp might be part of the balancing that allows us to have mortar up for so long.

When it doesn’t die you can have it up nearly 100% of the time.

Something no other elite can do.

Think what your happen if thieves could chain dagger storm or guardians their tomes.

So mortars weaknesses might be a part of it’s balancing.

I would be fine with the low hp if it could shoot farther than an enemy engineer can throw a grenade or an enemy ranger can shoot a longbow. Balance just seems off to me when an elite skill is only potentially usable in one small part of one game mode and even then grenade kit is arguably stronger on its own merits and allows you to take supply drop.

So mortars weaknesses might be a part of it’s balancing.

I would argue losing all mobility and evasion, ability to heal, and locked into 5 skills, is enough for balancing.

Zandur.5012:

Just buffing mortar range up to 2000 base and 2500 with traits wouldn’t take them much time and would give engineers a reason to use their 30 point elite skill. Don’t get me wrong tho, your idea sounds amazing and I would love to see it implemented at some point.

Thanks, and I know. I don’t expect an overhaul atm for much of anything, and I’m happy with Supply Crate for the moment anyway. (Elixir X is fun but it’s DPS and usefulness is fairly questionable.)

I do agree with your post, by the way, as I’ve tried a large multitude of setups in terms of gear, traits, skills, and have yet to find any practical purpose for the Mortar. In WvW it’s range means it’ll just be killed by AoE spam lightning fast and it basically makes you a sitting duck in sPvP with a laughably short range. It’s funny because you would think a mortar would pack more punch, but in one Fort Defense I fired on this small group crossing a bridge, and they basically just stood there and took the damage like the joke that it is, and keep in mind I was in full exotic berserker’s gear!

In PvE I suppose one could argue in the big ‘mob spawn’ events it’s great, I find that doubtful. I’d rather just equip, as other people have said, grenade kit and keep my precious supply crate.

Don’t get me wrong. I more than agree that mortar is weak to the extent of only having very minor niche uses.

But when you compare it not to other utility skills but to elite skills. It has some very unique attributes that might be screwing the dev’s towards its balance.

For example think of the damage you can do with elixir X vs mortar or supply drop vs mortar for their full durations.

Since mortar has such a long duration in that total time it can do more damage than most other elites.

So the downside to mortar is that it’s weakened to spread damage out over a long duration rather than a short.

If it was changed to do tons of damage from a massive range they might need to nerf the duration to counter it.

I kind of get the feeling that elites were never suppose to be something that you can use as a main ability set, but rather a clutch ability to turn the tide of a fight.

Mortar is just a bit away from the norm. Like a lot of things on the Engineer.

Karast.1927:

Don’t get me wrong. I more than agree that mortar is weak to the extent of only having very minor niche uses.

But when you compare it not to other utility skills but to elite skills. It has some very unique attributes that might be screwing the dev’s towards its balance.

For example think of the damage you can do with elixir X vs mortar or supply drop vs mortar for their full durations.

Since mortar has such a long duration in that total time it can do more damage than most other elites.

So the downside to mortar is that it’s weakened to spread damage out over a long duration rather than a short.

If it was changed to do tons of damage from a massive range they might need to nerf the duration to counter it.

I kind of get the feeling that elites were never suppose to be something that you can use as a main ability set, but rather a clutch ability to turn the tide of a fight.

Mortar is just a bit away from the norm. Like a lot of things on the Engineer.

Its also an elite that can be destroyed.

Also your comment on elites would make sense if other elites like Flesh golem didnt exist. Not saying that these types SHOULD exist but mortar isnt the only one that you can pretty much permantely keep out (assuming it doesnt die before the cd is up).

Also long duration does not mean it can do more damage than other elites. That is false, when using mortar your not just giving up an elite slot, your giving up your utilities and weapon slots….meaning it should offer something beneficial enough for you to feel worth the sacrifice being made…also your immobile and have a min range. So the problem ontop of the niche use is it simply still is questionable because of the damage/utility/mobility loss you might experience.

The spell simply is not balanced and also is useful in the slimmest of situations unlike many many other elites. I see no reason why a utility or elite should be less effective than the next and only be considered for one situation.

@Karast, DootmasterX (god its annoying how sometimes the quote function doesn’t work)

Now this discussion is getting somewhere! Thats a good point about the 100% uptime unless its destroyed. This makes it behave like more of a kit than a true elite, but since it can only be placed once and not moved again it has some pretty severe limitations. So perhaps it should just be made in to an actual kit, like the first half of DootmasterX’s idea, and behave the same as any other kit except that when you swap in to it you are immobile. In this kind of iteration, I could see it being competitive with Supply Drop with a base range of 1500 and traits that bring it up to 1700-1800 or so. I’ll noodle this one a bit longer but I’m really liking this idea so far, and it wouldn’t require much re-programming from the devs who I’m sure have a lot to do (like fixing our Deployable Turrets trait in PvE and WvW). Also this would make mortar usable for an opening barrage in solo PvE or as fire support for PvE zergs. As long as it remains immovable after use, I just don’t see it having much use in PvE.

EDIT: Just realized EvilZombie suggested this earlier in this thread, though in such sparse detail I didn’t really understand the greatness of his idea. Wondering what he means tho by “I wont like it to be.” Maybe flesh that out a bit, Evil??

I use it to troll the EB jumping puzzle. Got people camping the top platform in Arena or 2nd platform with boulder trap? Mortar 5 skill.

While mortar could use longer range…

worst skill in the game? Have you seen elementalists?

The only issue of Mortar is that is has real usefulness in a such small niche that seems to be awful.

Actually, if you palce it well and give it in the hands of somebody that does not have ranged options (aka: guardian) it CAN be useful in wvw (in pve/spvp the overstated niche does not exist, period).

But that’s it. Mortar is ok in really too few situation, atm, thus is a bit underwelming

While I’m not saying the mortar is awesome, just to point out one advantage it has over grenades.

Its arc allows you to place it in wvw such that you don’t have to be on the edge of the wall, risking DMG and death, to hit enemies. You can place it back and safely hit people since it fires over. Grenades will hit the wall in front of you.

The DMG is low, but at least you tag a lot of enemies and if other people kill them,..you get xp and loot. Selfish I know, but still semi useful

OP, before post pointless wall of text try to play not only in PvE. Mortar is one of the best elite skills in WvW, especially it’s 5 skill in siege. How can you even compare damage skill only (granade kit) and skill, which can knock from the wall 10-20 ppl?

Rump Buffalo.2594:

While mortar could use longer range…

worst skill in the game? Have you seen elementalists?

Are you kidding? Elementalist have their issues, but your Elites are usefull to you and benefit you. An Engineer effectively NERFS himself trying to use Mortar in all but very few, very niché situations. And then its almost always “yah but i used knockback barrage and it was k”

The entire Mortar skill could be replaced with a knockback barrage and no one would miss it. Infact it would be a much better Elite.

@Terrahero
I wish you to have wonderful “useful” elite skill Tornado. Or whirlpool after nerf. This is true nerf, when you block your utility skills in melee distance without getting ANY defence boost.
P.S. I’m amazed how strong classes can compain about good elite skills.
P.P.S. OP, elixir X is not only one stability source.

elem utility and elites are pretty terrible.

Aristio.2784:

Basilisk Venom is pretty terrabad Lyuben. And the Flesh Golem for Necromancer is pretty kitten poor too.

Basilisk Venom, Flesh Golem, and Mortar are probably the three worst in the game. (Not counting Racials)

basilik and Mortar yesh!! Flesh Golem is the only pvp elite worth taking on a necro lol i don’t know what you are talking about =D perma cripple/aoe knockdown….. . .. . . . . . .. . . .oh yeah and it hits for 1k.

coming back to Mortar… as it is now it’s not even worth taking if it wasn’t an elite just a normal skill.
make like something like the canon in capricorn map with limited ammo and half the CD, so u put it up, has 3000range+ shoot a few hits(3-4) for 5k then its out of ammo and u continue ur life, it wont really kill any1 but it would hurt team fights nicely. Or make it like one of teh WvW siege weapons, with lower CD and limited ammo.

Also i liked the robot idea much better =D

Casia.4281:

elem utility and elites are pretty terrible.

ele fire sword would b awsome if u didnt have 1hp as a dps ele that you cant go so near to anything and use it. the tornado needs to be upgraded to a t10 tornado not a t1.

@kreit
“I wish you to have wonderful “useful” elite skill Tornado. Or whirlpool after nerf.”

Thanks, but we actually already have Tornado and Whirlpool so i know exactly what it does. Courtesy of Elixir X. And it works even worst for us then it is for you (double cast time, easy to interupt costing the whole elite to go on cooldown for nothing), random effect so unreliable, and still Elixir X is a better elite then Mortar.

I’d happily take Tornado over Mortar or elixir X. Its more usefull then Mortar and more reliable then Elixir X.

“Mortar is one of the best elite skills in WvW”

Sorry, but its not that reliable to pull that off. And basic utility skills from other classes (mesmer’s Vortex and thief’s Scorpion Wire) accomplish the same thing but are much more reliable, lower cooldown (because no way mortar will be alive long enough for a 2nd shot) and it only takes a regular utility slot.
Heck, even Engineer has a better solution in Toolkits Magnet Pull.