Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing with flamethrower builds in WvW, and combined napalm specialist with incendiary powder. I’m not impressed with this as a grandmaster skill; a little extra duration is rather useless, given the amount of condition clears that people have, and the fact that I keep re-applying anyways with incendiary powder.

Is there any use for napalm specialist? I really don’t see much of a point to it. If you’re focused on burns, you’ll have lots of duration anyways.

might be good with pp hgh builds

It’s a bad trait. At most you could have fun with super long 40 second burns, but it’ll be cleansed easily by most classes. I’m sure the next giant patch will fix it.

It is a pretty bad grandmaster trait, I find it hard to have a reason to take it at all. Maybe as a master trait but I think the grandmaster slot should be for something better.

If you take a lot of burning skills the skills will just overlap with each other not really adding damage since burning stacks duration. And all it takes is a single cleansing to null the burning.

And if you take only one or two sources of burning the skill is just going to waste.

Its not a very good trait. If you’re not into conditiondamage then this trait doesnt really offer more then alternatives you’d have to give up for it.

If you are into conditions, you can likely already stack of Burn for a long time anyway, since it stacks in duration you’re either overkilling or getting it removed. And again, this trait is probably not going to add as much as alternatives.

A grandmaster trait that affects only one condition and only by increasing duration = not much use.

Perma-burning is great in concept, but fails in practice. In PvP/WvW long duration conditions get wiped, so the extra duration is wasted. In PvE major mobs never run out of burning, so the extra duration is wasted. . . . the extra duration is wasted.

Now if the trait caused an extra condition (e.g. burning cripples target; burning weakens target; burning stacks vulnerability; etc.) then it would be helpful.

Related question: Is anyone still going 30 into Firearms?

The 2% per condition one could be useful in PvE when something has 6+ conditions stacked on it. I would not spec for that, though.

Back to topic, thanks for the replies. I thought this one was rather weak.

I dunno.

With certain builds Napalm Specialist was very powerful pre-patch, especially for bunker builds that slapped like a wet fish for direct damage. With the new Rocket Boots animation, they’re finally worth using—which has a toolbelt which applies 5 seconds of burning.

So between Blowtorch, Incendiary Ammo, and Rocket Kick, people have to cleanse 3 times to get rid of my burns, which last quite a while otherwise. Remember that your chance for badges is dependent on damage done to targets, and if you’re a bunker FT in full Soldier, spamming Flame Jet isn’t always enough. The extra few seconds of burning has definitely made a difference in tags.

And I was messing around with it in sPvP the other day, and while it may be better to roll 30 Inventions with the buff to Stabilized Armor to use alongside Protective Shield/Energized Armor/Cloaking Device/Reinforced Shield, I don’t think Napalm Specialist is a terrible option to boost your damage.

Time will tell, but it’s a trait people took pre-patch and used effectively, and it’s only gotten stronger.

Phineas Poe.3018:

I dunno.

With certain builds Napalm Specialist was very powerful pre-patch, especially for bunker builds that slapped like a wet fish for direct damage. With the new Rocket Boots animation, they’re finally worth using—which has a toolbelt which applies 5 seconds of burning.

So between Blowtorch, Incendiary Ammo, and Rocket Kick, people have to cleanse 3 times to get rid of my burns, which last quite a while otherwise. Remember that your chance for badges is dependent on damage done to targets, and if you’re a bunker FT in full Soldier, spamming Flame Jet isn’t always enough. The extra few seconds of burning has definitely made a difference in tags.

And I was messing around with it in sPvP the other day, and while it may be better to roll 30 Inventions with the buff to Stabilized Armor to use alongside Protective Shield/Energized Armor/Cloaking Device/Reinforced Shield, I don’t think Napalm Specialist is a terrible option to boost your damage.

Time will tell, but it’s a trait people took pre-patch and used effectively, and it’s only gotten stronger.

It was a trait taken because Juggernaut was a grandmaster and there wasn’t much in that line to take. Those 10 points in firearms could be so much better used in another line.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Phineas Poe.3018:

I dunno.

With certain builds Napalm Specialist was very powerful pre-patch, especially for bunker builds that slapped like a wet fish for direct damage. With the new Rocket Boots animation, they’re finally worth using—which has a toolbelt which applies 5 seconds of burning.

So between Blowtorch, Incendiary Ammo, and Rocket Kick, people have to cleanse 3 times to get rid of my burns, which last quite a while otherwise. Remember that your chance for badges is dependent on damage done to targets, and if you’re a bunker FT in full Soldier, spamming Flame Jet isn’t always enough. The extra few seconds of burning has definitely made a difference in tags.

And I was messing around with it in sPvP the other day, and while it may be better to roll 30 Inventions with the buff to Stabilized Armor to use alongside Protective Shield/Energized Armor/Cloaking Device/Reinforced Shield, I don’t think Napalm Specialist is a terrible option to boost your damage.

Time will tell, but it’s a trait people took pre-patch and used effectively, and it’s only gotten stronger.

It was a trait taken because Juggernaut was a grandmaster and there wasn’t much in that line to take. Those 10 points in firearms could be so much better used in another line.

Such as? In WvW I feel that 0/30/20/20/0 is about as defensive as I want to get. There is a such thing as doing too low damage to where you’re not getting tags.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Such as? In WvW I feel that 0/30/20/20/0 is about as defensive as I want to get. There is a such thing as doing too low damage to where you’re not getting tags.

How about 10/20/20/20/0?

You lose some condition damage and precision. But gain power and cond. duration, and pick up Inc. Powder from the Explosives-line. I’d say thats a damage boost over going 30 firearms and picking napalm specialist.

Or you can go 10 into tools. Pick up a lovely Toolbelt cooldown reduction and 10% critdamage, aswell as Speedy Kits. Also something i’d rate much better then going 30 Firearms for Napalm Specialist.

Isn’t it still subject to the +100% condition duration that all conditions are? (Except for that one necro trait, of course)

Terrahero.9358:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Such as? In WvW I feel that 0/30/20/20/0 is about as defensive as I want to get. There is a such thing as doing too low damage to where you’re not getting tags.

How about 10/20/20/20/0?

You lose some condition damage and precision. But gain power and cond. duration, and pick up Inc. Powder from the Explosives-line. I’d say thats a damage boost over going 30 firearms and picking napalm specialist.

Or you can go 10 into tools. Pick up a lovely Toolbelt cooldown reduction and 10% critdamage, aswell as Speedy Kits. Also something i’d rate much better then going 30 Firearms for Napalm Specialist.

Two things:

1. Incendiary Powder requires crits to proc. If you’re wielding the Flamethrower and manning the frontline in a zerg, you’re probably wearing Soldier gear for the most part. Your Precision will be pretty low.

2. Blowtorch and Rocket Kick are both conical and can hit up to 5 targets. They benefit more from a flat increase in Burning Duration across all targets hit than an additional burn on a single target. I’m talking about tagging here. And the best method to getting badges is doing as much damage as possible across multiple targets while staying alive at the same time.

Not saying that Napalm Specialist is the overwhelming favorite or that I even use it all the time, but I don’t think it’s anywhere near as useless as you guys are insinuating. I used it pre-patch to try and nab as many badges as possible, and it was stupidly effective at it when used with Blowtorch. Now it’s just even better.

Now i do understand there are situations, ideal situations, where a 33% burn duration can be usefull. But i still feel its much more a case of “better then nothing” before.

The amount of damage you have to do to get credit for a kill is very low anyway. I get bags for shooting a downed enemy once with Explosive Shot (~400dmg). So i am having a hard time believing that Blowtorch + 2-6x burn ticks isnt enough in and of itself to get credit on a bunch of players. And that the extra 1 or 2 ticks are needed.

Terrahero.9358:

The amount of damage you have to do to get credit for a kill is very low anyway.

It is very low, but keep in mind that Flame Jet does very little damage per tick. Like 150 damage.

But hey. Feel free to do whatever you want. I’ve just found I walk away with a lot less bags when I don’t stack Burning Duration. People come on here all the time complaining that they get crap for bags doing zergs on their Flamethrower, and I’m just saying that Napalm Specialist has often worked very well for me, and I come away with very different results than a lot of players get around here.

You may get bags hitting guys for 400 damage with your Explosive Shot, but it’s pretty much generally accepted that you have to land close to 1000 damage to be “guaranteed” loot.

I’ve found that 0/20/20/20/10 also works fairly well if you’re reliant on Speedy Kits, but I didn’t get as many badges today as I did with 30 in Firearms. And the zerg sizes were about the same.

Yes, incendiary needs a crit, but flame jet ticks 10 times. You don’t need a high precision to virtually guarantee a crit.

I think cleanses are exactly why this is a good trait. In a condition damage build you want to defend against cleanses as best as possible. Since you can’t really stop people from cleansing, a great way to do that is to make sure that when you reapply conditions they’re as effective as possible. The fact that they cleared a 50s burn is not what matters with this trait. Your conditions are going to get cleared regardless of what you trait. What really matters is the next time you apply it after the cleanse it ticks as long as possible, giving you more damage. Even if they have a second cleanse or whatever, the point is at some point the burn is going to stick for awhile and you want to make sure that it sticks as long as possible when it does.

Good trait? Yes. Grandmaster though? No, I’ll agree with that.

jaif.3518:

Yes, incendiary needs a crit, but flame jet ticks 10 times. You don’t need a high precision to virtually guarantee a crit.

Guarantee a crit on what? One target per ten seconds?

The objective is to deal as much damage as possible across all targets you hit. I can stack over 100% Burning Duration without a single point in Explosives with Napalm Specialist, giving my Flame Jet burn at the end of each channel a 2s duration versus 1s. You may say that the 328 + Whatever damage doesn’t contribute a whole lot, but I assure you that it does. That extra 400 damage often makes the difference between getting a bag at my feet or not.

Anyway, I’ve made my point. Use what you will.

Good points all, esp considering I often use incendiary ammo on my rifle to lead, and follow-up later with a rocket kick. That’s many burns, and I see your point that maximizing those can generate more damage than 1 extra burn every 10 seconds.

To be honest, bag-count really gets to me. That’s why I stayed with the FT to begin with; one day I switched just for grins, and after an hour or two defense of our garrison with many desperate struggles around the lord, I had so many bags that I fell in love. :-) At some point, I really don’t care about the numbers as much as the results…if that’s a question of style, so be it, so long as it works.

-Jeff

I’m not sure it is that good as a grandmaster trait, though. Not just for the effectiveness, but because all the other “increase -particular condition- duration by 33% are major adept traits”.The only exception being necromancer, that in the same tree can get at adept major a 20% bleeding duration increase and with grandmaster a condition duration increase on conditions caused by scepter.
While it is true that burning is quite a good condition, putting it at grandmaster seems a bit lackluster. They should either give it a comparatively major increase (like, 50% instead of 33%) or putting some additional effect (dunno, a couple stacks of torment everytime you inflict burning? -insert trollface here-).