Guild Wars 2

Hatter.8159:

Fun while it lasted it was a little too good to be true, with the amount of node pressure it offered in spvp.

You mean the node pressure that’s inferior to what grenades used to be?
Grenades which got nerfed heavily from 1500 to 900 because they were supposed to be replaced by mortar at range?

It’s like bait and switch in a way.

Also it took them 1 kittening year to nerf turret engi despite daily complaint threads about it. Daily. Nobody really complained about mortar yet it was nerfed in 24h.

This nerf needs to be reverted ASAP, it makes 0 sense.
No one complained about this and yet BAM it’s dead, no fun allowed. It’s like someone in anet had a personal grudge against a mortar Engi.

If it’s not then bye bye Mortar, you were too fun, too pure for this world.

It’s just sad when we’ve been asking for turret nerf for well over a year and this takes them only 24h to nerf when it didn’t need to be nerfed.

Yesterday I was about to make a post in the lines off ‘wow mortar kit is amazing, you guys did it, and at same time it doenst feel overpowered, there’s plenty of counterplay, and with the damage boost to all professions, kiting is faster punished also. Before nerfing this ability, wich I suspect you might do Anet, plz consider first balancing the to high power all professions have now, cause a power nerf + % nerf will make this weapon absolete. It’s the first fun as engineer I ever had in zerg versus zerg. And yet it wasnt overpowered, I often almost got Judged interventioned to dead, because they saw me ranging them, or just reflect field, shooting the mortar back at us. Plz do not nerf it just yet, first take a look at bigger picture, like burns’.

But then I enjoyed mortar SO MUCH that i wanted to play rather then post. I go to bed, reach patch notes. ‘ok some fixes here and there, seems good. Oh wait a minute engineer nerf, what mortar? What 28%. Ok calms down a bit. Let’s see maybe other professions also got a nerf, and the rebalance effort has started? Nope engineer only one to be nerfed. Checks all forums, like pvp, to check for mortar complaints, maybe there’s an overpowered build i don’t know off. Nope nothing.

Dissapointing anet really. If you want to nerf it at least do it together with other professions nerfs, so we get an idea of why you did it and how you wanna evolve this patch. But nope, just engineer only nerf. This would suggest that Engineer Mortar kit is the only ‘over the top overpowered’ thing the patch introduced. The only thing that needed a hotfix. Wich is completely not true. I expected a nerf, and if it was fitting in a bigger picture i would have lived with it. But now I can’t. First of all the initial nerf is to big. That’s very bad for couple of reasons. First of all you promised small tweaks. This is not it. Second of all big nerf can potential turn a good build instantly into a crap build. Another reason I can’t live with this, is you didnt communicate or nerf other professions or update burning etc. Third reason: While not linked to pvp (balance baby of anet): Engineer is better then ever in dungeons (so is every prof tbh, except maybe necro), but since the improvement seems equal for engineer as for the meta profs (guard ele , warrior, thief), engineer is still behind them in dps/absoluut support range. As long as bosses etc keep their current hp, this is no prob, cause this gives everyone opportunity to ‘harder content’ (say fractal or dungeons). but the moment you say give bosses 50-150% extra hp again (wich I suspect you will do), the meta difference will be all out again, and it’s back to square one again for engineer in pve. Mortar could have lifted that a bit (not completely) in it’s first released implementation. But you even nerf that… And let’s face it, stuff like 100 blades, phalanx, etc won’t get nerfed. Same for backstab, etc. If anything you will just nerf stats a bit to get closer to past damage outlet. That in my opinion, stops the argument for a mortar nerf. It was already balanced by huge animation + only damage on nr 1, stealing an elite slot! (important imo, not having supply crate, means less burst/control in conquest pvp), a kit remains a kit, you can only equip one at time, use one auto attack at a time. Hence, all auto attack should be completely viable, no matter the situation they are on, cause they replace the other kits/weapon auto attack. For mortar it’s now questionable if that is the case (then again flamethrower has that prob also, but at least it has niche uses, like to tag mobs for loot etc).

For me the test of the century was will mortar be viable in zerg versus zerg. In past nade were’nt for couple of reasons:

Massive retaliation. No matter how good you played, passive easy to apply (no skill required) retaliation, killed naders most of time, even if they spammed heals.
Travel time
No support for commander
While it applies condi pressure it’s easy to cleanse, for me only poison grenade (old version) had a good potential to hurt enemies healing, cause reapplying

Retaliation was fixed mostly by mortar being 5 target (nades 15). however making damage lower, means you will need more attacks to pull same off, making retaliation stronger counter again
Travel time is better, but only slightly. Really slightly. I feel this advantage also only occurs 1100+ range compared to nades in past. Not enough an advantage to be really called an advantage imo.
Support is better then it was in past.

In the past Yolo guardian blobs had an incredible easy time with engineer. Even slow to push zergs, just killed half of your hp with retaliation. Now with mortar that’s barely the case. And the damage was just good enough to actually pressure them (in past everything but zerker damage was insufficient to actually make the enemy healing not sufficient to keep hp up). Most i saw was maybe 3k. And most of time my shots did 1000-2000. That’s not much. Lava font before patch easely did that but x4 (x6 with trait). Post patch lava font should be 3-4k ticks. Meteor shower easely does 4500 now, often 6000+. Ranger rapid fire also stronger then ever.

In my opinion this nerf was a little to narrow minded done. You gave engies new builds and fun, but immediately take that fun away by making the best new features, pretty weak. Please think twice before doing this Anet. We learned from past, that you in 99,99% of case, do not revert nerfs, or make the nerfs smaller (say, replace current 28% nerf with 14% nerf). That fact alone, (for us players), gives us the message: mortar will never be as good as 23th june anymore, and if other profession skills do not get nerfed, we got the short end of the stick again. You gotta think more before you apply this nerfs.

After a few games, yeah, I just can’t find a reason to take Mortar. You can argue for the combo fields being nice, but it doesn’t feel like a necessary addition. In fact it can be a hindrance if you need a certain clutch field and have one of these Mortar ones down providing the wrong combos for your team. The damage, even in a high might stacking build like HGH just feels unimpressive. I feel almost pigeon-holed in to just running what I’ve always ran. Even the new Moa from Elite Elixir is meh. You can stop a stomp, maybe burn out a Lich (Even though now with the Condi-Spike I almost feel like I’d rather have a Necro in Lich than running around.) But is it better than Supply Crate?

im just so suprised. i really didn’t see it coming. guess 2-3k autos were too much. wonder when life blast will be nerfed.

28% is just insane, just like the 30% nerf to nades previously. no other class has ever received nerfs this extreme to damage skills

choovanski.5462:

im just so suprised. i really didn’t see it coming. guess 2-3k autos were too much. wonder when life blast will be nerfed.

It won’t because everything non-engineer related is always overlooked. They nerfed nades by 30% in the past, now they do the same to the Mortar which was not nearly as good from the beginning, all as a part of their “small steps”, what a joke. I will be amazed if this is reverted, anet has shown in the past they do not admit to mistakes.

Well to be fair Dancing dagger received 50% nerf. But I also disagree with the nerf (it was waranted, but they should have started with 20% nerf and see how well it went, nerfed again if still to strong – not a all in one blow nerf.

But dancing dagger is a nr 4 skill that bounces and by initiative mechanic, spammable.

Mortar 1 is autoattack. I can’t remember an auto attack being nerf 28%.

BlackBeard.2873:

It is a 100% projectile finisher…It isn’t meant to be doing damage.

See: ele staff earth auto-attack.

Use it for what it is meant for: stacking chills (ice), poison (poison), and removing condis (light). Also, poke damage from forever away.

If you want damage, use nades. They are super-duper strong now.

apparently it is not meant to be used at all then sure 100% projectile finisher but how useful is it if it only affects players it passes through and not those who get hit directly

this makes the AA useless with the field play as its a slow moving projectile as well as actually damaging from afar

whoever nerf mortar must be smoking weed …. elite skill ….. back to nades… at least there are 3 chances of proc

I guess it might be useful if you want to afk at Teq. Oh wait, there is no auto attack. Yeah, it’s useless.

Toeofdoom.6152:

Testing this in silverwastes I regularly just ditched actual rotations for mortar 1 spam because it hit so hard… It was a bit too good! With the fixes people are discussing (projectile finisher, damage trait) it still seems like it will be fine.

You know it hit for exactly the same amount of damage as the grenade AA right? Except that it is only a single attack, which means only one crit proc, and less conditions applied, so it still hit for less than grenade AA even before the nerf. This nerf was completely unnecessary, and only served to further nerf engineers at range.

In WvW with full zerk i was doing 2-3k dmg with AA.
I saw that nerf coming….but i didn’t expect it like that.I was thinking more at a 10% or 15% nerf…not 30% nerf.
I was happy to have a brainless dmg resource with 1500 range for zerging….it was nice till it lasted.
Now,back in Engineer mode where you have to do the job of 4 peoples with your bottons to do decent damage .

Dramas aside,yes would be nice have the m o r t a r (it get censored i dunno why) do at least a 10% more damage than rifle.Just that.

Fix this, ANET. Or at least freaking provide a good reason why it should have been done.

Toolbox.9375:

Ricky Rouse.1583:

Whats that? Supply Crate can overcharge now? The overcharge includes a water field? It can then be detonated for a blast finisher?

A 3-second Water Field that activates on a delay, and a detonation Blast Finisher that then leaves you without the effects of your Elite Skill for the next 60-120 seconds. :P

Meanwhile, Mortar can be whipped out at any time, gives fairly-rapid guaranteed Projectile finishers (once it’s fixed, of course), provides a high uptime on Poison/area-denial and Weakness if you’re in a situation that calls for it, decent uptime on Chill/area-denial and Frost Aura if you’re in a situation that calls for it, 4-6 seconds of perpetual Blind in an area as well as condition removal or Retaliation if the situation calls for it, and some acceptable healing every once in a while with a pretty. Oh, as well as 1-2 Blast Finishers when needed.

Of course, Supply Crate gives 1-2 Blast Finishers, too, depending on whether you want to keep the turrets around or not. It also provides perpetual healing, damage, Burning, and Vulnerability in an area, as well as a small burst of healing, removal of two conditions, and a smokescreen when desired. All of that with a Stun upon its initial placement, as well as a very nice bunch of medkits via its toolbelt ability, with the overall tradeoff being that it all becomes unavailable for a relatively long period of time after it’s used.

Is Mortar better than Supply Crate? Certainly not. Is Supply Crate better than Mortar? Again, certainly not. They each have their uses, and it’s up to the Engineer to determine which one better suits their needs, and to use each to their fullest potential. Just because they each share a few of their many functions with each other doesn’t mean one makes the other obsolete, even if a couple of those shared functions are better on one or the other. :P

I’m laughing at the fact you think the poison field is area denial. Its two seconds of poison, and its the ONLY damaging condition on the entire kit. It isn’t a condition weapon, its a power weapon, and without condition damage poison deals like 30 damage per second. The chill is decent, but is very short lived. The other thing you are wonderfully forgetting to mention is that when the duration of a condition is in the gutter, it also means that it will not benefit as well from condition duration, making it double useless for condition builds. You never mention “1 second chill field for 6 seconds” you just say “chill area denial!” because it sounds less terrible. And area retaliation? Blasting a light field is a joke for a whopping FOUR SECONDS of it, and the blind off phosphorous shell is worse than the ones off both Grenade Kit and Bomb Kit, in AoE and duration.

The healing field is the only one worth using, and it isn’t enough. I’m not going to slot Mortar Kit over God Crate for 6 seconds of heal when I could just use my medical crate or overcharge the healing turret in supply crate for similar results without gimping myself with a now useless elite.

But yes, IF the projectile finisher was actually working it would be okay for spamming a bit more chill on enemies. No, there is still no reason to take it over Supply Crate. And thats why i’m upset.

People defending this kind of nerf are supporting Arenanet killing build diversity. They want us all to go back to Supply Crate on every kitten build for the next 3 years.

@ Nirvana: it’s because mortar + any word that starts with D (tar+d you get the sensor, still annoying cause mortar + damage (often used is censored).

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

@ Nirvana: it’s because mortar + any word that starts with D (tar+d you get the sensor, still annoying cause mortar + damage (often used is censored).

Waaaahhhh!!!!
Incredible,didn’t know that!
Thx!

all these posts. no math.
terrible.

untraited:

grenade 1.
.33 coeff. 1 attack/s. 3 grenades. 1017 ascended weapon kit str ave
1007 effective dps.

rifle 1.
.65 coeff. .85 a/s 1150 ascended weapon str ave.
879 effective dps.

Bomb 1.
1.250 coeff. .84 a/s 1017 ascended weapon kit str ave.
1515 effective dps.

current post patch mortar 1.
either .75 or .8 coeff. (testing not fully fleshed out yet..) .8 a/s(sure about this.) 1017 ascended weapon kit str ave.
953 effective dps if .75.
1017 effective dps if .8

If its .8, its still more dps then grenades. if not, just below. higher then rifle 1 still.
And then of course add traits in there. 10% explosions, vul stacking, etc.

I am not sure what the coeff was previously. “28%” suggests it was either 1.05 or 1.1.
Giving an effective dps of either 1335, or 1398. both are pretty ridiculous for a ranged aoe. And would have been 30% more then grenades..

BlackBeard.2873:

It is a 100% projectile finisher…It isn’t meant to be doing damage.

See: ele staff earth auto-attack.

Use it for what it is meant for: stacking chills (ice), poison (poison), and removing condis (light). Also, poke damage from forever away.

If you want damage, use nades. They are super-duper strong now.

Right, gl hitting anything with the bullet itself.
Its not a 100% projectile finisher because it was meant to stack stuff, but because
the chance of directly hitting them with it is so low that a 20% chance would almost never see activation.

Mortar will eventually be used again just for the fields while players avoid the first attack altogether, but imo its a shame to have any auto attack be avoided like that

Typical to “destory” our competative wvw dps kit within 2 days!

Casia.4281:

all these posts. no math.
terrible.

untraited:

grenade 1.
.33 coeff. 1 attack/s. 3 grenades. 1017 ascended weapon kit str ave
1007 effective dps.

rifle 1.
.65 coeff. .85 a/s 1150 ascended weapon str ave.
879 effective dps.

Bomb 1.
1.250 coeff. .84 a/s 1017 ascended weapon kit str ave.
1515 effective dps.

current post patch mortar 1.
either .75 or .8 coeff. (testing not fully fleshed out yet..) .8 a/s(sure about this.) 1017 ascended weapon kit str ave.
953 effective dps if .75.
1017 effective dps if .8

If its .8, its still more dps then grenades. if not, just below. higher then rifle 1 still.
And then of course add traits in there. 10% explosions, vul stacking, etc.

I am not sure what the coeff was previously. “28%” suggests it was either 1.05 or 1.1.
Giving an effective dps of either 1335, or 1398. both are pretty ridiculous for a ranged aoe. And would have been 30% more then grenades..

Pretty much.

What I’d like to ask is how is Mortar getting such a large nerf but this new godmode minion master AI build is a legitimate thing? Lol.

Casia.4281:

all these posts. no math.
terrible.

untraited:

grenade 1.
.33 coeff. 1 attack/s. 3 grenades. 1017 ascended weapon kit str ave
1007 effective dps.

rifle 1.
.65 coeff. .85 a/s 1150 ascended weapon str ave.
879 effective dps.

Bomb 1.
1.250 coeff. .84 a/s 1017 ascended weapon kit str ave.
1515 effective dps.

current post patch mortar 1.
either .75 or .8 coeff. (testing not fully fleshed out yet..) .8 a/s(sure about this.) 1017 ascended weapon kit str ave.
953 effective dps if .75.
1017 effective dps if .8

If its .8, its still more dps then grenades. if not, just below. higher then rifle 1 still.
And then of course add traits in there. 10% explosions, vul stacking, etc.

I am not sure what the coeff was previously. “28%” suggests it was either 1.05 or 1.1.
Giving an effective dps of either 1335, or 1398. both are pretty ridiculous for a ranged aoe. And would have been 30% more then grenades..

Even assuming these calculations are right it would have been completely fine for it to be stronger than grenades’ autoattack, since we use an elite slot for it and they even compete for the same trait slots (Shrapnel is mostly suited for grenades, whereas Siege Rounds works only with mortar).
Seeing as grenades process those same explosion traits, but better (due of the 3 grenades vs single mortar shot) we can just ditch the mortar and use the grenade kit all the time.
Good work.

Manuhell.2759:

Even assuming these calculations are right it would have been completely fine for it to be stronger than grenades’ autoattack, since we use an elite slot for it and they even compete for the same trait slots (Shrapnel is mostly suited for grenades, whereas Siege Rounds works only with mortar).
Seeing as grenades process those same explosion traits, but better (due of the 3 grenades vs single mortar shot) we can just ditch the mortar and use the grenade kit all the time.
Good work.

none of this really works.

“its an elite it should be stronger” doesn’t make any sense. As an elite its balanced vs taking the elite slot. you lose an elite, but gain a utility slot. and the f5 skill.
This in no way justifies it being the supreme dps skill. 30% more dps then grenades would have made it THE only viable pve skill. possibly even wvw.

The second aspect of what you are arguing does not justify again, that massive power coeff. and instead simply points out, grenades and mortar are too similar. one ought to be more cond focused, and one power… or some other option.

Mortar already drops a poison field, a water field, an ice field, and a light field.. with orbital strike being a blast combo.
and it procs the same field twice with seige rounds.
M1 has no business being the highest dps AA with the rest of the combo fields and orbital strike.
M1 itself is 100% projectile… with all 4 OTHER skills dropping fields.. add throw naplam or napalm to that for firefields.

I might have even nerfed it more. While pushing it towards its “combo” role more.
it is missing fire and smoke, two of the better fields. probably no accident bomb has both.

As I see it, it doesn’t act like a weapon anymore. We have to deal with it. The way it is balanced we got a single hard hitting skill with 40s cd called orbital strike, we just use the actual kit to modify this hard hitting skill by triggering a combo field, so we get a hard hitting attack which can:
a heal for some amount
b give retalation to allies
c give weakness to foes
d give frost aura to allies

It has three of the four best combo fields in the game and people are crying that it’s useless because you can’t AFK from 1500 range anymore.

This is why ArenaNet doesn’t comment on these forums. These positions are just unreasonable.

Phineas Poe.3018:

It has three of the four best combo fields in the game and people are crying that it’s useless because you can’t AFK from 1500 range anymore.

This is why ArenaNet doesn’t comment on these forums.

Those combo fields are ok, not great, and certainly not the best in the game, just ok. And, since they nerfed grenade range down to 900, and rifle down to 1000, that auto-attack is our only long range option. It already did less damage than grenade AA, because it’s a single attack instead if three, and thus doesn’t apply as many conditions. So right off the bat with the implementation of all the kit changes we had a significant DPS nerf to our long range attacks, and now it just got another significant nerf. It’s crap, and was completely unnecessary.

I get the feeling you don’t play engi, because we never could afk from 1500 range.

Gern.2978:

I get the feeling you don’t play engi.

lol.

Gern.2978:

Those combo fields are ok, not great, and certainly not the best in the game, just ok.

I’m kind of baffled I have to explain how long we’ve been asking for a water field that lasts longer than 1 second. Water fields are literally the most important combo field in WvW, and having a ticking Poison field that covers an entire point in PvP is absolutely invaluable.

Understand that not everything is balanced around PvE. What the Mortar Kit offers in PvP and WvW for power-centric builds is absolutely incredible, and was legitimately overpowered in its original state.

I suggest increasing Mortar 1 damage by 18%. It hits too less now.

Casia.4281:

none of this really works.

“its an elite it should be stronger” doesn’t make any sense. As an elite its balanced vs taking the elite slot. you lose an elite, but gain a utility slot. and the f5 skill.
This in no way justifies it being the supreme dps skill. 30% more dps then grenades would have made it THE only viable pve skill. possibly even wvw.

Seeing what they did with “Feel My Wrath”, yeah, i’m quite sure they do are balanced over taking the elite slot.
That aside, grenades have other advantages – mostly due to their superior proc abilities.

The second aspect of what you are arguing does not justify again, that massive power coeff. and instead simply points out, grenades and mortar are too similar. one ought to be more cond focused, and one power… or some other option.

And grenades are indeed more cond focused if we bring Shrapnel into consideration, especially seeing as grenades can also massively process vulnerability…that now works with conditions, too – and thus, even with those same bleeds that Shrapnel processes.

Mortar already drops a poison field, a water field, an ice field, and a light field.. with orbital strike being a blast combo.
and it procs the same field twice with seige rounds.

Yeah, those skills do exactly that. And nothing else. If you want to damage the enemy, there is the autoattack and a couple ticks of poison. Sure, you can combo the fields with the autoattack, assuming you properly hit them with the projectile itself. But one second of chill won’t keep your enemy far for much time, and neither those 2s of poison will help much. The only good field there is the water one, and obviously it is the one with the longest cooldown.
The only relevant effects are given by blast finishers. And the weapon provides one of those, two when traited.
Basically, now we can sum the whole weapon with two blast finishers on a field of our choice and nice particle effects in the meantime, and that’s all.

Casia.4281:

M1 has no business being the highest dps AA with the rest of the combo fields and orbital strike.

Yep, that place is already occupied by grenades. That just applies that conditions directly, without even bothering for enemies to stay in the field. And without huge tells on its toolbelt, since we just shoot those grenades in the face.

M1 itself is 100% projectile… with all 4 OTHER skills dropping fields.. add throw naplam or napalm to that for firefields.

Or just leave the mortar alone and use grenades with their superior vulnerability and bleeding capabilities. A condition build would rather choose Shrapnel than Siege Rounds, either way.

Casia.4281:

I might have even nerfed it more. While pushing it towards its “combo” role more.
it is missing fire and smoke, two of the better fields. probably no accident bomb has both.

People will just forget the mortar and return using grenades and bombs – they do more damage and have “better” fields, as you said yourself.

“It has three of the four best combo fields "

A bit much to say.

imho,the best combo fields for mortar hypothetically would be:
1 fire field. aoe x3 might on blast, and 1s burning on 100% projectile.
2 lightning field. 5s vulx2 on projectile. (aoe swift on blast. kindof ho hum.but situationally useful in wvw.)
3 smoke. aoe stealth on blast, blind on proj.

4 poison/water/eth I would consider tied.
poison 2s poison on proj. (aoe weakness. bleh.)
water. aoe healing on blast. (regen on proj. bleh.)

7/8 also tied for “who cares”?
dark and light. aoe blind and life steal on dark, and aoe ret and remove cond on light.

obvs favoring pve here. water higher in pvp.

If I were to run mortar, I would strongly consider FT and flame turret with it. and possibly bomb kit. 3 fire fields. +smoke field. would give me aoe stealth on call. blinds on call.
lots of might, and burning on proc. siege rounds and inc powder.

Played around with mortar in WvW for a few hours.

It’s still quite effective, very good when complemented with grenade. I’d say current damage slighly less than Well of Suffering’s tick, making it great ranged pressure on zergs. Best used when you’re on an elevated area where you can take advantage of the projectile arc to LOS other ranged damage.

In terms of usability, IMO, it’s much better as ranged pressure than old grenades simply because you won’t kill yourself using it, and the AoE is more reliable than grenades. The frozen field and poison fields can also be quite disruptive when shot on the middle of a zerg. You need to be smarter now when using it. Whereas I could just spam mortar 1 before, I need to switch between mortar, grenade and rifle now depending on the situation. Orbital strike + grenade barrage on the backlines can down a lot of people when coordinated with a good push.

So even in its nerfed state. still a very good weapon (for wvw at least).

1 mortars AA shouldnt hit hard!, uh, you guys know you do have to actually aim it right >.>, unlike lich forms fingers of death

Manuhell.2759:

People will just forget the mortar and return using grenades and bombs – they do more damage and have “better” fields, as you said yourself.

The Grenade Kit lost its poison field. Your only access to weakness now—which is pretty strong in a burst meta—is either taking the Elixir Gun for Tranquilizer Dart or using Mortar Kit’s poison field instead. Having a poison field that blankets an entire point and be freely blasted by everyone for spreading Weakness and Poison is very strong, especially when you’re not sacrificing any damage: Orbital Strike hits for nearly 2K non-crit per strike, even with a Celestial amulet. Firing off 4K damage to spread 5 seconds of weakness is a fair move in my book.

Light fields within themselves may seem unimpressive, especially when they’re tailored more toward group support than cleansing conditions off yourself (projectiles cleanse allies nearby the target and not yourself), but it spams blind on a one second interval, making a relatively safe stomp against several classes without having to sacrifice a slot for Elixir S, Elixir B, or the Bomb Kit. I will admit guardians and warriors utilize light fields better, because whirl finishers are just mechanically easier to use, but in team-fighting having an AOE blind field that can condition cleanse is going to get a lot of use.

I also don’t think it needs to be overstated how huge it is that we finally have a water field that lasts more than one second. When traited it can last up to six seconds, meaning it actually ticks seven times. It may not cleanse conditions like Healing Rain does, but it heals for a pretty significant amount. It heals for nearly 400 health even in full Berserker gear in PvE; that means you’re getting back close to 2800 health every 30 seconds. The raw power of this in WvW, when it can be fired from 1500 range, is seriously invaluable, especially when you factor in that you can easily F5 immediately after you drop it for two quick blasts for an additional 2.6K health.

In sum, if you pair a traited Orbital Strike with the water field, you will basically be giving yourself back over 5K HP every 40 seconds (34 with Tools) with zero healing power; it’s quite literally a second healing skill slotted into your build.

But clearly, as Gern said, I don’t play engineer. Carry on.

Nerf was warranted.

You say 400 a second is really good, but have you seen condis? that 2800 is easily eaten in just ONE tick, take example guardian burns atm. A guardian can easily get a 12k burn in one tick, 2800 isn’t going to save anyone, i highly doubt it’d even buffer it! and while i agree the poison field+orbital is very fun and very nice to pull off on a burst player, im still going to be switching to nades :/ nade one deals heavier damage, hell they all do heavier damage and a heavier condi, along with a waaay faster velocity, imo mortars selling point was the fact that it did high enough 1 damage to someone. Again grenade beats mortar in another factor. You can activate nade damage just by passing through your target you dont even need to have your aoe indicator on them as long as it passes your targets body he’ll take damage, meanwhile mortar target HAS to be in aoe circle to do damage.

this made me sad when i read it my engi only did around 2k dmg anywhere from 1500 – 2200 zerging in wvw. u cant rly play with zerg without it as engi
so idk wat exactly they r trying to do here rangers r already better from range
necros have better conditions. atleast they could give us some condition resist to turrets.

Hansgrell.8179:

You say 400 a second is really good, but have you seen condis? that 2800 is easily eaten in just ONE tick, take example guardian burns atm. A guardian can easily get a 12k burn in one tick, 2800 isn’t going to save anyone, i highly doubt it’d even buffer it!

ANet has said they’re examining burning damage and may scale it back. But I do think it’s important to mention that condition removal does exist, and that Sigil of Generosity is really good against guardians since they have so few conditions aside from burning to flip back onto them.

Hansgrell.8179:

and while i agree the poison field+orbital is very fun and very nice to pull off on a burst player, im still going to be switching to nades

Grenade Kit is a utility skill. Mortar Kit is an elite. You can use both, and should. I don’t think the Mortar Kit was designed to be a primary auto-attack so much as additional gap pressure from 1500 range. If they get closer than that, and within range of your grenades, you should be using them instead. I don’t see the problem with this, and aside from combo fields, I think this is what the Mortar Kit was intentionally designed to do—not be this mainstay kit you wield in all situations and ranges.

If anything needs to be done further for the Mortar Kit, it’s fixing the projectile finisher mechanic so that it actually procs when you hit enemies with splash damage.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Gern.2978:

I get the feeling you don’t play engi.

lol.

Yeah… you might play engineer… but you’re no Vee Wee. <3

I do use both phin thats how i know that nades need only make physical contact while on flight to deal damage, where mortar has to splash down and detonate to hit the target, which is why mortar is weaker in this degree. And remember nade is king when it comes to vulner+shrap while the combo fields are nice, imo mortars 1 skill was good for close up pressure, in this case i actually get more out of rifle. And i just cannot classify mortar 1 as an auto attack, i just cant. You have to manually aim it and use its velocity+targs movement to get a bead on your target, where i could just press one and im guaranteed outside of dodges to always get a rifle shot off.

Hansgrell.8179:

I do use both phin thats how i know that nades need only make physical contact while on flight to deal damage, where mortar has to splash down and detonate to hit the target, which is why mortar is weaker in this degree. And remember nade is king when it comes to vulner+shrap while the combo fields are nice, imo mortars 1 skill was good for close up pressure, in this case i actually get more out of rifle. And i just cannot classify mortar 1 as an auto attack, i just cant. You have to manually aim it and use its velocity+targs movement to get a bead on your target, where i could just press one and im guaranteed outside of dodges to always get a rifle shot off.

I agree. But I still think the kit is worth taking for the 2-5 skills, and using them regularly. Understand that my angle here is clearing up the argument of the OP:

Gern.2978:

Now there is no reason to use mortar kit at all. The only reason I will even have it equipped is for Orbital strike, and the rare need for 1500 range against a near stationary target.

The purpose of my post was not to claim that the Mortar Kit is worth using over the Grenade Kit, but to establish that the combo fields the Mortar Kit provides are situational game-changers in the hands of an experienced engineer. Celestial builds have gotten significantly stronger with its inclusion, and when everyone grows tired of three-shotting each other, I anticipate that the Mortar Kit will be meta for all power-centric and Celestial builds for reasons stated I above. It further elevates the status of engineer as master controller, and if one were to build for it, could additionally slot in the Elixir Gun for condition conversion for full-on medic builds.

The potential is significant, and it has its place in a burst, bunker, and condition meta, as it offers weakness, condition removal, heals, blind, chill, and poison. Name a spec and it offers something to counter it. With Lock On you can literally reveal thieves from 1500 range away. It will completely redefine the pacing of solo roaming for engineers.

It’s something that will be situationally useful regardless of where the meta goes. And to call it useless just because they nerfed the auto-attack is seriously pearls before swine.

Shifu.4321:

Played around with mortar in WvW for a few hours.

It’s still quite effective, very good when complemented with grenade. I’d say current damage slighly less than Well of Suffering’s tick, making it great ranged pressure on zergs. Best used when you’re on an elevated area where you can take advantage of the projectile arc to LOS other ranged damage.

In terms of usability, IMO, it’s much better as ranged pressure than old grenades simply because you won’t kill yourself using it, and the AoE is more reliable than grenades. The frozen field and poison fields can also be quite disruptive when shot on the middle of a zerg. You need to be smarter now when using it. Whereas I could just spam mortar 1 before, I need to switch between mortar, grenade and rifle now depending on the situation. Orbital strike + grenade barrage on the backlines can down a lot of people when coordinated with a good push.

So even in its nerfed state. still a very good weapon (for wvw at least).

I gotta agree that mortar kit still feels pretty good in WvW on a zerk engi. Great ranged pressure that’s spammable every 1/2 second. Even though mortar 1 takes a while to reach a target, you can just continually lay down mortars and catch a ton of people with it. You often end up forcing a zerg to either engage or run away; they can’t just stay at range and tank the damage. At the end of the day there’s still no other profession that can do that kind of aoe damage from 1500 range, it’s a nice niche role.

Here’s how I imagine the scenario went:

A dev was playing a ranger in WvW, shooting at a zerg from on top of a wall as the zerg was attempting to take a keep.

Ranger Dev: “Oh, look a thief, I’m gonna put pressure on him from max range so I can pop my RF on him before he goes into stealth.”

• doesn’t notice the incoming mortar shells because he’s to engrossed with all his max range pew pewing *

Ranger Dev: “What?! What is this?! What downed me?!!! ……An engi mortar? THIS CANNOT STAND!!!! None but Rangers are allowed to do decent damage at 1500 range!”

• mortar auto-attack damage reduced by 28% *

It was too much fun to last.

I had a blast running Mortar Kit in WvW Zerg before the nerf. Felt like I was really doing something useful for the Zerg. But GWEN couldn’t be GWEEN.

Now it’s back to SD Backline Sniper which I’ve played for years and is getting boring. (Although it’s still fun in Small Scale and Roaming)

Anyone have some good WvW Zerging builds that are fun and useful?

Some people just want to roleplay their stupid bomb builds so they say mortar nerf is justified.
Also lol at the “strongest fields”. Except water what strong field? Poison strong field? Ice field strong too amirite?? You can blast for frost aura! Light field? Funny.

Strongest fields are water, fire, smoke. The rest are not strong.

Aw, I didn’t even get to play with it.

so you reduce grenade range to bring mortar kit…..now u nerf mortar kit lel why would i even bother to bring that when supply depot has been tested and proven for 2 1/2 yrs. In pvp i wont bring mortar since elixir x is way way better, the only place mortar is decent is wvw zerg fights and u nerf the dmg GG anet.

If at least our +10% explosives damage trait would -work- on the mortar…

But hey, the list of bugs has 45 things by now. So that’s fun. Several are related to Mortar #1.

Ah well. Wait and see.