Guild Wars 2

It’d be cool if toggling autoattack on the grenade switched the targeting mode, that way you could lead ahead if you choose or on stationary targets let your 1 key have a rest.

Grenades need :

an overall damage increase (except for the Barrage maybe)

faster flight time or cast/less cooldown on auto attack

and to be compatible with Explosive elixirs and gain additional 25-30% radius 50% tops(might be too high) to make them feel as an AoE weapon.

I think what really needs to be done here is something that was said before:

1 – Make 1 an auto-targeting and auto-attacking skill.
2 – Increase the travel time of the grenades through the air (NOT the speed you throw them at)
3 – Decrease the damage of the auto-attacking skill (If it doesn’t miss often) by about 10% or so.

I think this would keep it balanced. You can still chill with Freeze Grenade and ground target with grenades 2-5, but the auto-attacking 1 skill can either be made for mostly stationary targets or just do slightly less damage but be more accurate. Either way, I still believe something needs to be done to keep me from having to manually hit 1 every time.

plasmacutter.2709:

The grenade kit has good damage to effort return?

Maybe 5 months ago, not now.

No, it is definitely great. You just can’t expect to be the exact same player as months ago.

Oh jeeze I would hate land auto attack so much. Yes, spamming 1 can get tiring, but I LOVE the control I have over the grenade kit. I also love highly active combst to note. Targets that reflect projectiles like Jades in Fractals? Yeah good luck with autoattacking that. You have to place nades so they aoe those targets, not directly hit. Ever since the “nerf” to grenade damage, I’ve been doing more damage than ever with my skill 1 (over 3300 at times, even 4000 a couple times with 3 nadez, often in the 2400+, and this isn’t including condition damage too. I must be doing it right.) Frankly, at the current moment, I find the grenade kit very well off, been running it since launch so it is my native combat style. Ironically, with my recent changes, my biggest problem with tge grensde kit is the underwater swap cooldown. It’s a situation where it is high input, high output.

Edits due to still learning some stuff on my tablet :p

Still could use auto-attacking on the first skill…skills 2-5 are for the AoE targets. If they’re reflecting projectiles, either stop attacking for a few seconds or use those. And it’s not like just because the first skill would be an autoattack it instantly becomes single target instead of AoE…it’ll still do plenty of AoE damage.

The Eternal Grace.3157:

Still could use auto-attacking on the first skill…skills 2-5 are for the AoE targets. If they’re reflecting projectiles, either stop attacking for a few seconds or use those. And it’s not like just because the first skill would be an autoattack it instantly becomes single target instead of AoE…it’ll still do plenty of AoE damage.

Why would you distinguish Skill 1, AoE, from Skill 2-5, AoE. They are all AoE, granted, Skill 1 AoE is 30 units smaller in radius, 120 vs 150 isn’t a large difference however, still AoE, still hits multiple targets. Part of the power of the Grenade kit IS the ability to place the skills wherever you want. You can lead the targets, and it was even mentioned before, you can toss the grenades in complete different directions! I’ve thrown grenades directly behind me while running away from an enemy before!

Stopping attacking just because an enemy is using reflect projectiles? There’s no reason to become a sitting duck when it’s perfectly capable to place the AoEs. Even more so, because it’s not an auto-target, you don’t have to even target enemies! That would become a MASSIVE pain in mobs. Auto-targetting would literally become auto-pilot and absolutely kill the skill input on the grenade kit. All you would have to do is run around and dodge while your auto attack could attack from any angle (unless they would make it so you have to face the direction you are autoattacking). And it’s a pretty dang good auto attack too so that would have to be cut down.

Look, I have no intent of offending anyone and mean this at no one in particular, and maybe it’s because I’ve ran grenades since launch so I’m used to it, but the idea to auto-attack grenade skill 1 on land is a spawn of laziness. The grenade kit maintains the capability to be high input, high output. The more active and well designed you are in running the kit, the better you are rewarded. I went from 1000-1500 average damage on skill 1 up to a consistent 2100-2500+, even peaking at having seen 4000 damage with my grenades, from good playing, and good design.

personally, I think that simply changing the targeting would change its function.

What the grenade kit should be is a very very good area denial tool. If they want to pass the area we are carpet bombing, we are tolling them, in the use of a blocking skill, utility, gapcloser, endurance, or HP. That’s its current incarnation.

IF we set it to autotarget players, then it’s just a slower, longer-range version of the pistol auto attack.

Hrm, I’m not sure we are arguing for the same points. An auto attack toggle would only be of use on stationary targets anyway, because such a system would not be able to reliably lead on targets. At least that’s how I envisage it.

You hit control+mouse 2 on skill one. Grenade autoattack now attacks the targeted enemy or structure’s current co-ordinates. If whatever it is moves, the grenades miss – the same way they do if you don’t lead on a moving target. I’m not saying grenades should be turned into bullets, but rather that we have an option to use them in a similar way that a necro uses the staff autoattack. (which realistically is currently in worse shape, because it’s more or less impossible to lead on with it should you choose to. But I digress.)

All I’m arguing for is a feature that many people already implement themselves using keyboard macro software or similar tools. I guess other’s have a different vision of it.

The Eternal Grace.3157:

I think what really needs to be done here is something that was said before:

1 – Make 1 an auto-targeting and auto-attacking skill.
2 – Increase the travel time of the grenades through the air (NOT the speed you throw them at)
3 – Decrease the damage of the auto-attacking skill (If it doesn’t miss often) by about 10% or so.

THIS would simply be a penalty for engineers who know how to hit nearly all of their grenades. I understand you would like to have G1 auto-attacking and for beginners your quote could work much better. Sometimes I’m also sometimes tired of the spammy style, esp. if I’m far away and melee isn’t an option. But I’m def. don’t like a damage reduction because the skillfloor gets lowered.

TL;DR

1+2 I can live with, 3 no
rather no change before 3

Let they remove grenades spread and pistol’s #2 spread also.

As always, I agree with the suggestion of making Skill #1 a sticky-targeting auto-attack. I think it is key that the grenades for this skill have collision detection, as they do underwater.

Ideally, it would be a toggle so that all players can set it to their preferred playstyle. But short of that, I think changing just #1 won’t kitten any pros and make the kit far more accessible.

Guys Remember… hmmn where should i start…
Ow yes the range, ye 1,500 range (I’ll have a stronger arm than Rifle shot lol).
Now lets say you have a Player Target at more than 1000 range.. now try to hit him with the nades and tell me how many times you missed, he dodged or he just ran out of it… nades fail on moving targets you need to be lucky and shot at the front to where the target is moving and pray to hit him…
Also if you spect nades you lack survivability so you’ll fell like a thief without stealth

Edit: I strongly agree with nade1 autotarget and faster trows… maybe less range on nades and more on mortars rifles and pistols?

Malvado.1460:

Guys Remember… hmmn where should i start…
Ow yes the range, ye 1,500 range (I’ll have a stronger arm than Rifle shot lol).
Now lets say you have a Player Target at more than 1000 range.. now try to hit him with the nades and tell me how many times you missed, he dodged or he just ran out of it… nades fail on moving targets you need to be lucky and shot at the front to where the target is moving and pray to hit him…
Also if you spect nades you lack survivability so you’ll fell like a thief without stealth

Edit: I strongly agree with nade1 autotarget and faster trows… maybe less range on nades and more on mortars rifles and pistols?

Just saying, while I haven’t WvW’d consistently recently, but if you’re playing the 1500 range, pretty big chance they are trying to close that gap, and the fastest way to close a gap is a straight line. It’s not very difficult to anticipate player movement, even a stealth’d thief can be predicted.

Spec Nades = Lack Survivability is a horrid assumption, I’ll leave it at that. It has a base to be made upon, yes, but by far a generalization. I often can out-survive my party unless I’m in the fray trying to soak up some agro intentionally.

Also to note, the Mortar natively has a larger range than Grenades at 1400/1500, Grenades only sit at 1200/1500. So traited they are equal, untraited, the Mortar is larger. Also note the difference in AoE size. And there’s a design difference that accounts for the range difference as well. Rifle/Pistol vs Grenades? Which can be kited easier? A Grenade (1200/1500), slow moving vs Rifle (1000/1200) / Pistol (900/1050), fast moving, (untraited/traited). Yeah that plays into the formula, can’t be neglected. Even at a closer range you can sidestep or dodge Grenades.

Alkron.1345:

The Eternal Grace.3157:

Still could use auto-attacking on the first skill…skills 2-5 are for the AoE targets. If they’re reflecting projectiles, either stop attacking for a few seconds or use those. And it’s not like just because the first skill would be an autoattack it instantly becomes single target instead of AoE…it’ll still do plenty of AoE damage.

Why would you distinguish Skill 1, AoE, from Skill 2-5, AoE. They are all AoE, granted, Skill 1 AoE is 30 units smaller in radius, 120 vs 150 isn’t a large difference however, still AoE, still hits multiple targets. Part of the power of the Grenade kit IS the ability to place the skills wherever you want. You can lead the targets, and it was even mentioned before, you can toss the grenades in complete different directions! I’ve thrown grenades directly behind me while running away from an enemy before!

Stopping attacking just because an enemy is using reflect projectiles? There’s no reason to become a sitting duck when it’s perfectly capable to place the AoEs. Even more so, because it’s not an auto-target, you don’t have to even target enemies! That would become a MASSIVE pain in mobs. Auto-targetting would literally become auto-pilot and absolutely kill the skill input on the grenade kit. All you would have to do is run around and dodge while your auto attack could attack from any angle (unless they would make it so you have to face the direction you are autoattacking). And it’s a pretty dang good auto attack too so that would have to be cut down.

Look, I have no intent of offending anyone and mean this at no one in particular, and maybe it’s because I’ve ran grenades since launch so I’m used to it, but the idea to auto-attack grenade skill 1 on land is a spawn of laziness. The grenade kit maintains the capability to be high input, high output. The more active and well designed you are in running the kit, the better you are rewarded. I went from 1000-1500 average damage on skill 1 up to a consistent 2100-2500+, even peaking at having seen 4000 damage with my grenades, from good playing, and good design.

30 units of radius is actually a very large difference. Doesn’t seem like it, but you’re talking about units of radius. If my math is correct, 30 units of radius added to 120 is about a 1.56 multiplier, meaning the area of 150 is about 156% of the area of 120…quite a difference. The auto-attack is still AoE, and will hit enemies within that area whether they throw automatically or not.

This spawn of laziness as you called it, is actually very false as well. It’s because I don’t see the fun in breaking my keyboard’s 1 key by hitting it every second as well as leading myself to carpel tunnel. It just isn’t fun. Although I would consider myself a “hardcore gamer” in most cases, I play for fun. I don’t care how much damage I do with a build, if it isn’t fun, I won’t run it. That’s actually the reason I don’t play much PvP…to me there are actual few builds that are fun for me to run. Sure, call it laziness, but I call it lack of fun by hitting the same key over and over. Especially on a stationary mob that is locked onto frontlines, I don’t see how hitting 1 over and over is any more challenging then letting it do it itself…especially when I could area target with 2-5. It’s just unnecessary strain and boredom.

SpaceCowboy.1398:

Ideally, it would be a toggle so that all players can set it to their preferred playstyle.

This is perfect. Toggle like the rest of the auto-attacks can. If people love beating their keyboard’s 1 button to death, let them do that. I agree with some posts, if the situation calls for it, ground targeting may be useful (however you could just chill them and it would be just as effective). But in most cases, auto-attack would be much more convenient. It’s not like just because 1 becomes auto-attack it doesn’t do AoE damage, or requires no skill to use. Skills 2-5 would be the big difference, and those should remain ground targeting.

I agree with most of the people here – I want to love my grenades, but the skill1 spam is annoying as all hell.

Kamahl.3621:

Try any other class’ ranged options.

I have. You should try it too.

I agree. It is the only #1 skill that cant be auto-target and for me its a pain. It whould be as easy as give the player the choice to use it as it works now or the possibility to lock the target.

Only thing I wouldn’t mind seeing is 1 being made into an auto-attack

I played my engineer A LOT this weekend and my wrist are absolutely killing me. Yes grenade kit and about 12-15 hours of wvwvw. The only other time i’ve had this problem is playing the bard class in eq1 which was also hard on the wrist. I would like this class to be my main but i really cant because its to physically painful.

I think we can all see the another nerf smack down coming for the nades anyway.

My suggest would be add another kit… all the classes are getting close to a add 1-2 new skills time to keep things interesting anyway.

Add a Rocket Kit… that can be traited to 1500 and it could be similer to the Grenade kit with some reduced dmg… but the longer range. (wouldn’t it be cool to see a rocket back pack… and have us bend down a bit to fire rockets like a Star Wars bounty hunter. lol)

The Nade kit should be reduced to 900 base range (perhaps even 600)… with 900-1200 traited… its sort of crazy to think we are hucking nades with more range then our pistols have isn’t it ?

If we where going to have a super long range weapon wouldn’t a rocket make 100% more sense.

Kamahl.3621:

Why should something more braindead (within the same class) do more damage?

As opposed to Heartseeker spamming thieves, Rifle/Longbow Warriors, Altrustic Guardians, Shortbow/Longbow Rangers and the other braindead builds that put out ridiculous damage/survivability?

People seemed to have taken this thread in a whole new direction.

All the OP is asking for us is a targetted autoattack on Grenade Kit 1, not 2-5 or anything else. The RSI I have from playing this kit for a while is telling me he’s 100% right.

On thinking about this a bit more, a targetted option would change the way the kit works quite dramatically for keep sieges, I like to bomb the walls where defenders are standing and making it targeted would completely change the way this works.

Perhaps rather than targetted, maybe keep the ground target but just have it spam wherever the ground target is.

Please don’t change Grenades!

They are not suppose to be spammed in Spvp , they are used for damage AND utility, no one uses grenade 1 much anyway.

If you find the other 4 grenades are on CD then you should be back in pistols or rifle setting up your next attacks.

The Eternal Grace.3157:

I’m having a hard time liking my engineer. I really want to use the grenade kit because it’s awesome and traits fit it well…also got a little bored of the flamethrower. But I seem to not like it much because they’re all ground targeting skills unless you’re underwater. *This is really annoying because I have to constantly hit 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-2-3-1-1-1-5-1-1-2-4-1-1-1-1 over and over. *Please at least make the first skill auto-attacking and target locking. If I have to occasionally hit 2, 3, 4, and 5 to ground target, that’s totally fine. It’s just really annoying to have to ground target every single time with my auto-attack. Please change this.

This, plus the grenades nerf, plus grenade flight-time, is why I’m no longer a 100nades/bomb engineer.

I would love to have a target-lock option that kept the grenades hitting the target. Or at least the ground where the target was….

Plus, throwing the next set of grenades should not be limited until the end of flight-time. I found grenades to be a great short-range weapon, but when you went long-range, they just fell apart due to how long the gap was between throws.

OTOH, I think it’s great they gave us the ability to throw grenades without LOS. That used to drive me nuts, as well.

yes please fix it,flamethrower has good aoe and no range for a prof that is very squishy,so you can’t hope to use it,bomb kit is just …well stupid ,grenade kit is the best aoe that engis can use and have fun with.

Something tells me ANET did not want people misusing this beautiful class by parking in one kit spamming auto-attack.

For the love of god, use your cooldowns. If you are, and still have that much time to spam ‘1’, you don’t need mechanic changes.. you need a more interesting build..

Talk about bringing a thread back from the dead.

It will always be a point of contention between the full timer gamers and the part timer gamers. Full timers (8+hour a day—1%) and part timers (everyone else—majority of the populace) will always disagree on this. I don’t think subjective arguments about so called skill should enter into this. It’s elitist and asinine.

For some reason I read the title of the post like this

Dear Anet,

Please make grenades #1 affected by reflections. I dont want the aoe advantage because I am lazy

Definitely need to make this target locking. They already purged any dps advantage it had. Now that it is relegated to being “just like everyone else” it should be “just like everyone else” and have target lock available on ALL of the skills. Dont change anything at all other than the target lock and travel time.

Fact is it should have never been nerfed on damage because it is already at a HUGE disadvantage. You aoe and thats all you can do. In dungeons this gets to be super dangerous because you have no choice but to pull mass mobs to you. Its a double edged sword and as such its power was already mitigated by its weakness. Additionally the fact your throws have an aggressive arc means you are limited to where this “ranged” weapon is really ranged. I frequently find myself having to “melee grenades” because the environment is not conducive to the arc and they hit ceilings, pillars, torches, etc.

What “1” button?

I use space bar.

This has to pop up every week doesn’t it?

Yes, target lock would decrease the skill you need.
Yes, it would decrease the numbers of grenades that hit on long range in a lot of situations.
And yes, it would make a lot situations far worse:
- like some said, running and throwing grenades behind you is a big advantage
- throwing grenades into the terrain (walls in wvw) where the targets change/can’t be locked etc.
And yes, this kit is still extremly! good, not just because of the damage it does, but because of all the conditions it has:
aoe vuln.
aoe bleeds
aoe snare
aoe poison
aoe blind
burn (with trait)
Oh and yes, underwater has the auto cast because it’s simply the only possible way since your enemy is not near a surface most of the time. 2d pointing device (mouse) in a 3d enviroment (water bassin)…

sry but this kit is on the deflist for possibly being still to strong (see SOTG) and here half the people whine and come up with rediculous OP ideas.

PLEASE, don’t touch it. Thanks.

Just give the ability to switch ON/OFF auto-attack.
If OFF, stays as it is. If ON, auto-attacks your target.
Wow, wonderful, problem solved !
Other solution is to apply auto-attack only in PvE (as I said in another thread, I feel like it’s so much needed in PvE while it’s better as is in WvW and dunno for sPvP but guess it’s the same)
Unfortunately, none of this will happen.
Do as I’ve done : shelve your engineer until they fix it.