Guild Wars 2

I think the new trait system is a huge nerf to Flamthrower builds.

This a kit has a low base damage and needs to be traited in order to be effective.

Right now, we can boost it with :

• Deadly Mixture – Deal extra damage with a flamethrower or elixir gun.
• Fireforged Trigger – Reduces recharge on flamethrower and elixir gun skills.
• Juggernaut – You gain toughness while wielding a flamethrower. In addition, gain might at regular intervals while using this weapon kit.

With these 3 traits (and the correct gear) the FT is “good”, maybe not as strong as grenade/bomb, but fun to play.

After the update, the only thing remaining is :

• Juggernaut : Gain a stack of might for 15s and a stack of stability for 3s every 3 seconds while using the Flamethrower.

So we lose : +200 toughness, +15% damage, +20% cdr
we gain : Stab every 3 s

For me FT isn’t viable anymore

We do not know if the 15% dmg and the 20% cdr have been made baseline, if it has then this is a pretty huge buff considering you can take other traits instead.

Are.1326:

We do not know if the 15% dmg and the 20% cdr have been made baseline, if it has then this is a pretty huge buff considering you can take other traits instead.

And if not it’s a pretty huge nerf.

I think it’s not baseline or it would be included in the patch, just like ranger upgraded range or the 3 grenades/skill

They ignored a lot of skills in this preview, like blowtorchs new burning application and whatever happened to rifle/pistol range and pistol’s coated bullet trait.

We’ll have to wait and see on the accual patch notes in a week, this was just a preview hastly put together.

Regarding Fireforged Trigger, we can only hope it’s now baseline. I used to use Flamethrower as a utility kit over Tool Kit in a PvP grenade build, alongside Elixir Gun, for trait synergy with Fireforged Trigger. It will be a crying shame to see it gone.

I am pretty sure some of them went to baseline and Jugg still have 200 toughness aswell

At least on Skyhammer, Juggernauts will laugh about the silly attemps to throw them down.

i think “the lose” u are talking about was moved into baseline…it realy would be stupid to nerf one of the most underplayed kit…
but man i love stability on that…imagine keeping point in pvp , freaking harpies in fractals and etc…no fear im standing right here and will burn u down as it shuld be …

one thing bother v me : no nepalm specilaist and lack of others burn orianted traits can make tihngs harder- what point in stacking burning if u dont have many sources of this condi …atleast i can see return of p/p flamthrower, flame turrets builds

WOW it would be awesome to find new ways of playing as engi

addar.2867:

i think “the lose” u are talking about was moved into baseline…it realy would be stupid to nerf one of the most underplayed kit…
but man i love stability on that…imagine keeping point in pvp , freaking harpies in fractals and etc…no fear im standing right here and will burn u down as it shuld be …

one thing bother v me : no nepalm specilaist and lack of others burn orianted traits can make tihngs harder- what point in stacking burning if u dont have many sources of this condi …atleast i can see return of p/p flamthrower, flame turrets builds

WOW it would be awesome to find new ways of playing as engi

If you use correctly the #4 skill of FT (with combos) + Rocket boots+ #3 FT
, it won’t be hard to stack burning.

Ok, we’ll see next week … baseline or not ?

I’m kind of disappointed with the choice you have for the Firearms grandmaster trait. Either Juggernaut or Incendiary Power, which, is currently what I run together as a condi oriented build for extra and better burning. If you are want to dish out a lot of burns, flamethrower seems like a natural choice, but they threw away the great synergy between these traits.
Honestly I would have preferred Juggernaut the way it was if it meant staying as a master trait and allowing me to continue to have longer burns and burning on crit. However, as it is, I’m probably going to stick with Incendiary power and the Flamethrower even if it means not having the one trait MADE for flamethrower as it’s the better condi choice.

I weep for the FT, while there might be some new build options for it. All old uses are dead. Any key traits for it are either gone or put together so only one can be chosen. In the end I will continue to use it simply because it is fun but the I will have to make new ascended armor to even pretend that it is still useful. (T_T)

Now sorrow aside, Maybe a new crit condi build?

I’m just waiting in my full skeptic armor now.

There are a few lines were they declare that something has been converted to baseline… and none of them were for Fireforged or Mixture. I strongly doubt Jugg keeps the thoughness. If they don’t mention it there’s a reason. I even would not be surprised if Juggernaut is not associated to FT anymore.

I believe they are trying to make weapons more relevant than kits… so they are nerfing any kit that you tend to stay on.

Ardid.7203:

I even would not be surprised if Juggernaut is not associated to FT anymore.

They made it very clear in the stream that this is flamethrower only. If it wasn’t… kitten .

FT will deal way more dmg now that burn stacks intensity.

Dojo.1867:

FT will deal way more dmg now that burn stacks intensity.

Hold on a second… Air Blast.

Currently, it has a little quirk where it doesn’t cause burning, but instead extends the duration of an existing burn.

So how does that interact with stacked burns? Does it extend all the current stacks?

What if a flamethrower engie is in a world boss zerg, said boss has 1000 stacks of burning and a single engie extended ALL of those burns by 2 seconds.

I imagine there’ll be some kind of cap like epidemic, or the skill will just now give it’s own stack of burning instead now, because that sounds insanely powerful.

Great, my FT engie now needs to be rebuilt.

Sigh, time to go find a new set of runes, and maybe even new ascended armor with different stats.

Thanks, obama.

I use FT on live right now in WvW/PvP and take zero of the FT traits cause they are in terrible places or compete with better traits. Granted, the AA on FT is mostly useless but the 2, 3 and 5 skills are super strong. Flame Blast makes for incredible burst on a 6 second CD that you can time the large damage to hit at the end of an opponents dodge roll. Air Blast is a low CD knockback to get some breathing room and Smoke Vent makes safe stomping half the classes in the game possible on Engi without needed Elixer S. Overall FT is a fantastic weapon that people want to camp in but thats just not the design of it.

displacedTitan.6897:

I use FT on live right now in WvW/PvP and take zero of the FT traits cause they are in terrible places or compete with better traits. Granted, the AA on FT is mostly useless but the 2, 3 and 5 skills are super strong. Flame Blast makes for incredible burst on a 6 second CD that you can time the large damage to hit at the end of an opponents dodge roll. Air Blast is a low CD knockback to get some breathing room and Smoke Vent makes safe stomping half the classes in the game possible on Engi without needed Elixer S. Overall FT is a fantastic weapon that people want to camp in but thats just not the design of it.

Well, I disagree. For me, the AA isn’t garbage at all. The strong hidden fact is : it deals 5 AA per sec. So it can trigger procs on food or on sigil.
For example, I play with a celestial armor and sigil of strenght (might on crit with 1 s cd). With the FT AA and Juggernaut, I can stack 18 might in 10s by doing absolutly nothing , which wouldn’t be possible with any other weapon. Add a flame blast on napalm, and you have 25 stack.

And you can play with food that proc on crit with a low cd (Omnomberry Ghost for example). You have a decent DPS with only the FT AA…

Wait to see the numbers, the dmg buffs might have been baked in now.

Anyway, perma-stability… That’s pretty big.

Markus.9084:

displacedTitan.6897:

I use FT on live right now in WvW/PvP and take zero of the FT traits cause they are in terrible places or compete with better traits. Granted, the AA on FT is mostly useless but the 2, 3 and 5 skills are super strong. Flame Blast makes for incredible burst on a 6 second CD that you can time the large damage to hit at the end of an opponents dodge roll. Air Blast is a low CD knockback to get some breathing room and Smoke Vent makes safe stomping half the classes in the game possible on Engi without needed Elixer S. Overall FT is a fantastic weapon that people want to camp in but thats just not the design of it.

Well, I disagree. For me, the AA isn’t garbage at all. The strong hidden fact is : it deals 5 AA per sec. So it can trigger procs on food or on sigil.
For example, I play with a celestial armor and sigil of strenght (might on crit with 1 s cd). With the FT AA and Juggernaut, I can stack 18 might in 10s by doing absolutly nothing , which wouldn’t be possible with any other weapon. Add a flame blast on napalm, and you have 25 stack.

And you can play with food that proc on crit with a low cd (Omnomberry Ghost for example). You have a decent DPS with only the FT AA…

Multi-hit AA isn’t the strength but a double edged sword, every offensive proc has an internal cooldown and retaliaton has none.The dps IS CRAP considering you can get almost the same amount of damage back to you from retaliation.

Fireforged Trigger did not become baseline and can not be selected in the traits. juggernaut is still a fairly rubbish kit camping trait. Napalm and incendiary power do even less damage with powerbuilds now.

The flamethrower nerf is real.

santenal.1054:

Fireforged Trigger did not become baseline and can not be selected in the traits. juggernaut is still a fairly rubbish kit camping trait. Napalm and incendiary power do even less damage with powerbuilds now.

The flamethrower nerf is real.

yep, HUGE nerf.
Don’t forget that the +200 toughness on Juggernaut is gone too.

For me, power builds with FT are dead now. Maybe we can play FT with Dire armor and spam burning, but I don’t think that will be really effective..

Ok, I admit that I’m not a theorycrafter, and that I play mostly for my enjoyment. In PvE.

But looking at the FT, Grenades and Mortar autoattacks, there seems to be some kind of balance between their power.

I’m not saying it’s wasn’t nerfed, but to me, it looks like they tried to balance the kits.

EroticAndHeretic.7398:

Ok, I admit that I’m not a theorycrafter, and that I play mostly for my enjoyment. In PvE.

But looking at the FT, Grenades and Mortar autoattacks, there seems to be some kind of balance between their power.

I’m not saying it’s wasn’t nerfed, but to me, it looks like they tried to balance the kits.

Balance the kits ?
FT was one of the most under-played kit… And for me, they buff grenades (shorter range but faster grenades), and it was definitely one of the strongest

It would be good for condi builds now if Incendiary Ammo actually worked right. Looks like it still only applies 1 stack of burning per hit, so 3 total per use. It’s supposed to apply 2 stacks per hit for up to 6 on one target, so it must be a bug.

FT seems to be working great for me (open world PVE), at least with the traits that I have chosen.

redcomyn.4651:

FT seems to be working great for me (open world PVE), at least with the traits that I have chosen.

Curious as to which traits those are.

Care to share?

Faction.4013:

redcomyn.4651:

FT seems to be working great for me (open world PVE), at least with the traits that I have chosen.

Curious as to which traits those are.

Care to share?

I’m not in game, right now, so I can’t say specifically what they are called. FT, itself, appears to be about the same as before. Nothing earth shattering. However, in the inventions line. there are traits that help survival. One trait has a 50% chance (I think that is correct), of dropping a proximity bomb and a medikit at your location with each attack. That is very helpful, I can tell you. They drop very often.

There is also a trait, I don’t remember for sure where it is, that has a chance of sending a missile (?) at the target on criticals. I think that is right. It might be 100% chance on critical. That adds to the damage. With all of the FT attacks, criticals do happen fairly often.

When I attack, the medkit drops help to keep me alive and the proximity bombs add to the damage. I will sometimes back away from the enemy while attacking and the enemy will advance into the bombs.

So far, running FT seems to be a lot more survivable now than before.

Ok, I went back in game and looked at the traits. In the Inventions line, there is the grandmaster trait, Bunker Down. That is the one that drops a proximity mine and a medkit, on criticals. In the post above, I got that backwards.

In the Explosives line, there is the master trait, Aim-Assisted Rocket, 33% chance on hit.

I only have about a 25% chance of crit, but the FT hits so often that I am dropping more medkits and mines than I can use. They appear to be constantly dropping every second or two.

The medkits aren’t enough to make you invincible, of course. They only have modest healing, but it is enough to be of significant help to stay alive. I got a little kitteny at one point and got in over my head. The medkits didn’t save me.

Weird, I got ‘kitteny’ instead of the perfectly ordinary non-swearing word that I used. I was basically trying to say “over-confident.”

Flamethrower is nice, I can just stroll through Orr and ignore all the heavy CC these scrubs are throwing at me

What kind of gear are you using? I used to use Cleric’s gear for the 7% toughness to power and 10% healing to power but that seems to be gone now. Is it just Berserker gear for flamethrower builds now?

FT/juggernaut is great for zerg diving in wvw. The pulsing stability outweighs the toughness there greatly, and might is usually not a problem in these cases. Interestingly enough I have taken a lot of retaliation damage but have not died to it but this is because I switch to something else after getting through the tough bits and not just 11111 on it.

Unfortunately, the damage has definitely gone south in other situations and the lack of a cooldown reduction makes your support less effective, so it may have died in pve.

Weylin.6478:

Flamethrower is nice, I can just stroll through Orr and ignore all the heavy CC these scrubs are throwing at me

Yeah, that stability is really nice!

Flame Thrower is still far from the best weapon, but it is fun. I think it is in a better place now than it was before.

I like the new flamer and I think the bonus damage traits we had before have been made baseline with it because pre patch my tooltip damage was hovering around 1300 with the might stacks, now its well over 2000. Overall damage seem to be the same or even a bit better than pre patch. My engineer is very happy with this!

Flamethrower is currently bugged. Incendiarry ammo only applies half the amount of burn stacks (1 instead of 2).

With a fix for that flamethrower is a decent DPS and Control (airblast) addition. The blind and napalm are also decent utility skills (for example might stacking or to shoot mortar 1 through it). Only flame blast seems a bit out of place now. Still waiting for it to automatically detonate and apply the blast finisher when hitting a surface instead of “going through the earth”.

Yea, it’s really annoying to have it shoot the ground before you can do anything.

Flamethrower has been broken since 2013. I don’t know why people still try it.

The blast finisher is nice, and the new burning damage is cool, but the bomb kit does both of those more reliably, and with other accessible conditions. Until they change Flame Jet so that ticks 2-3 times instead of 10 and burns with each tick and not just the last one, it’s just not going to be good.