Retaliation and Flamethrower 1
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I’ve been on about this for over a year, but as most things related to engineers we’re just ignored. Gadgets, Turrets (aside from healing turret) and a few gyros (looking at you shredder gyro) need a complete overhaul because at the current state of the game they’re bloody USELESS!
For flamethrower AA to be viable it needs a damage increase and in my opinion the 10x hit can be reduced to a 5x chain hit or a 4x chain hit which would result in less retaliation damage taken.
Alternatively they could lower the cast time instead of damage increase which would essentially do the same thing.
Nades have the same problem, ever tried to Nade barrage a zerg with retaliation? Try it, and watch your HP melt.
Edit: Will these things change? I highly doubt that. Personally i have no hope in Anet. Their game philosophy is great on paper, but in practice is not so and leave a lot to be desired.
(edited by Deax.1572)
I think it’s insincere to say this is an ignored aspect of engineers. I’ve seen the posts and I hope Anet continues to ‘ignore’ FT because some excellent effects can be taken advantage of based on how FT AA works. IF Retal kills you, don’t use FT when your opponent has retal. It should go without saying that good players can adapt to their situations. You have multiple options for kits and weapons.
I think it’s insincere to say this is an ignored aspect of engineers. I’ve seen the posts and I hope Anet continues to ‘ignore’ FT because some excellent effects can be taken advantage of based on how FT AA works. IF Retal kills you, don’t use FT when your opponent has retal. It should go without saying that good players can adapt to their situations. You have multiple options for kits and weapons.
And if you’d want to use FT in WvW zergs? You can’t because you’ll kill yourself faster than the enemy will. I’ve tried it. On paper it looks nice, but in practice it doesn’t work because of retail. The simple change of 10x AA hit chain reduced to 5x hit chain would drastically improve survivability in WvW. In small scale fights sure, FT AA is bad and shouldn’t be used at all unless it’s situational like a thief in Shadow Refuge.
As it stands now it’s only really applicable in PvE open world roaming/tagging/zerging. In PvP/WvW it’s not useful.
If FT gets you killed in WvW, then why would you want to use it? Sounds a little contradictory to me … unless you like making junk builds that get you killed. Maybe FT is only intended to be useful in open world. Ever think of that?
(edited by Obtena.7952)
Well…you do have to consider the rest of FTs kit, AA isn’t the only option. Flame Blast is pretty powerful when played right, you also get a 10 second long fire field and you have plenty of blast finishers as Engi to stack more might,
I do think Smoke Vent needs some tweaking since it’s main niche was to use it while knocked, stun, dazed etc. Now it’s just a quick blind with a 20 second long cool down and meh radius. I’d say completely change it to a new skill.
FT AA is a pretty powerful attack. Can trigger a lot of on-hit critical effects plus the Firearm trait line and the fact you will be fighting rather close ranged will potentially get you a 40% critical rate without having to invest heavily on precision. Or if you do have high precision then you can potentially get unlimited swiftness and stacks of vulnerability on enemies. FT AA is like a double edged sword, it severely punishes you if you recklessly attack enemies, or it severely punishes them if they’re not prepared.
WvW scenario FT AA is also a cleave- a long range one at that. If enemies decide to ram the door down your flamethrower could just go right through and break their rams without having to harm yourself too much and the fact you can’t be knocked down. For PvP you just need to be…less obvious. You should capitalize on using AA when they’re stunned/launch/knocked down/back and you got plenty of tools to apply them. Also with Scrapper you can be a lot more sturdier with a chance to get quickness since it’s pretty easy to get 10 stacks of might constantly with Juggernaut.
FT needs some kind of drawback. If retal weren’t a thing why would you use anything else in WvW? Instead it is a concern and forces you to utilize other options and use FT when it’s safe not always. Run around with perma stability and a handful of might while AE’ing everything in front of you… that’s just not reasonable to have without some kind of counter.
Throwing nades on 1 player without retal, then throwing nades on a group with retal. In 3-4 throws, my health drops 50% just from the absurd retal. Flamethrower is potentially even worse.
Nobody said retal should be removed. The damage just needs to be reduced drastically, against nades and FT.
You cant monitor retal boon in AOE, just your target.
You guys are talking about WvW, but the self damage even against 1-2 targets is extremely high.
I really like the idea of making the chain of attacks less frequent with FT AA, that would help a lot. Midontto explains my point very well too.
(edited by Laetus.8671)
Throwing nades on 1 player without retal, then throwing nades on a group with retal. In 3-4 throws, my health drops 50% just from the absurd retal. Flamethrower is potentially even worse.
Yes we know that … so don’t use it on groups with retal.
I really like the idea of making the chain of attacks less frequent with FT AA, that would help a lot. Midontto explains my point very well too.
Except that’s the selling point of FT. Do you think Anet just accidentally made FT AA a 10x hits over 2.75 seconds? I don’t. It’s intentional and if you use it intentionally, it works great.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
Yes we know that … so don’t use it on groups with retal.
Retal is too easy to get. Thats like saying don’t use it on people with fury or might. You would never be able to use it. This isnt stability were talking about.
Also you can’t track boons of multiple targets, maybe if they made an onscreen UI change then it would be easier.
Not sure if you’re serious or not … the logic here is not complicated. Don’t use FT on targets that have retal. If retal is so prevalent that it makes FT unusable … well, I shouldn’t have to say it a third time should I?
I get you WANT to use FT in PVP/WvW but how is want a compelling reason to change it? What makes you think what you want is inline with what Anet thinks FT should be?
(edited by Obtena.7952)
Engineer is impacted far more than other professions by retaliation, therefore the answer is just not to play engineer. It’s so simple, and it definitely doesn’t need anything complicated like adding a 0.5s or 1s per target ICD to retaliation. Surely you guys should be able to grasp that. /s
Except that’s the selling point of FT. Do you think Anet just accidentally made FT AA a 10x hits over 2.75 seconds? I don’t. It’s intentional and if you use it intentionally, it works great.
This had me laughing pretty hard. Cause you know, we all know Anet would never make a useless skill on accident or bad balance choices.
Lol. You guys gotta stop feeding this troll. Obviously some adjustments need to be made, just doubt it is high on Anet’s priority list.
Anet makes mistakes, but I don’t see anything there that suggests a mistake … it’s not 100 hits or .275 seconds. All the parameters of the skill are within reason of any other skills. You can attribute the values of that skill to any mistake you like, but the fact is that it works well and no one really presents any reason to change it other than “Want to use FT in PVP/WvW”. That’s just ignoring the fact that weapons have purpose and may not be fit for those activities. That’s not some exceptional thing either. All professions have questionable weapons for specific game activities. FT is very normal in that respect that it’s not a be all weapon for PVE, PVP and WvW. I don’t even understand why anyone would either assume it should be … you people do play this game right? You are aware that not every weapon on every class is good in all three of those types of game play right? You can easily conclude that Anet’s doesn’t target to make every weapons on every class to be good in all three of those types of game play right? I mean, it’s so blatantly obvious to me that I can only conclude that people that make these threads are being very obtuse.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
I just don’t understand where you’re coming from here. It’s like you’re saying skills and weapons shouldn’t be balanced around pvp/wvw.. but .. GW2 skills and weapons are supposed to be balanced around pvp. That’s their stated design philosophy. I could go dig up the post from like .. 4 years ago where they said that.
You can bet that if FT’s 10x hit allowed for a broken hit-proc build in pvp, it’d be nerfed pretty quick. They’re just really slow to fix and balance certain things. They gave up on some of them – Med Kit, for example.
If Anet did say that, I would like to see it. Yes please do find it.
Personally, i don’t see this as a pressing issue anyways, even if that is their stated design philosophy. I don’t deny it was said, but the practical reality of the game is that they are limited by what is worth doing and even if they want to make all skills useful for PVP, I think that’s a naive goal to have. It’s obvious to me that we are 4+ years later and … where are they at with such a goal? I would say not even close.
Is it worth fixing FT AA because of their weapon design focus around PVP? Engi’s have other options for PVP/WvW, so I don’t think a philosophical issue is reason to change FT AA. Again, Engi isn’t unique as a class because they have some weapon options that aren’t ideal for WvW/PvP; I think every class has weapons they wouldn’t use in PVP, so the reason to fix it has to be more significant than this.
If the philosophical issue is real, then the argument isn’t if, it’s when because FT AA is competing with hundreds of other weapons and class skills that are also not well suited for PVP.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
Well…Engineer is one of the classes that have access to ranged AoE Auto Attacks. That video just pointed out why retaliation was there. They just pelted 5k-6k damage in total to a group while being in a safe distance. If you’re gonna abuse it, you should expect no one should just stand there and take it. They had to use a weapon/utility skill only to deal with just your auto attack. How is that fair?
Even then Engineer also has counter measures like Throw Mine. Both Throw Mine and Mine Field remove boons from enemies. You also can use Superior Rune of Nullification. Or you can just CC them off of you to buy time so retaliation will wear off. There’s so much counter measures to deal with it but you’re so fixated on this one Auto Attack.
Sure, I may have dished out 5-6k aoe damage across 3 throws, but I took 12k in retaliation. Can you imagine if, say, Revenant took twice as much damage as they dealt with CoR? They’d 1-shot themselves every time. That’s a 1200 range non-projectile aoe that does more damage than grenade barrage on a much shorter cooldown.
The issue is that retaliation unfairly punishes certain skills more than others. Why should Flamethrower take 5x more retaliation damage per second than a greatsword swing?
Across 3 throws it’s 15k-18k in total onto that group. Sure you did 2k-3k damage individually to a target but you used it on a group intending to harm them as a group.
The problem about comparing CoR to a grenade auto is the fact that CoR actually has a recharge and also has a cost.
There’s a massive difference between Greatsword and Flamethrower and it’s the fact that Flamethrower as stated is a RANGED AoE Auto Attack. Why should a Greatsword be punished as hard for fighting up front when Flamethrower can do that fighting mid ranged?
You’ve also ignored the fact that they had to use a weapon/utility skill to deal with your auto attack. And also the fact that there’s ways to deal with it.
So you’re basically telling me you just want to abuse AoE Auto Attacks.
If you spam attacks you pay for it. /thread
There only exist a few weapons & skills which sort of behave like the FT. Most attack which go through walls and obstacles have a lock-mechanism which cuts the damage siginificantly within the first 2-3 seconds. This issue is quite old and never gets touched, although it is quite imbalanced. Maybe the FT is broken or barely functions as long as you leave everything as it is? We have other skills/kits of the engineer where I assume a similar situation. It works, as long as noone lays a hand on it.
We have seen how much ANet, the devs really care about us in the first place. So I would not focus on any complaints about the FT the grenades or other engineer skills. Instead, I would focus on the retaliation buff itself.
In my opinion, retaliation needs to be buffed. It really should come up with the promise given in the tooltip text. Instead of giving static damage, it should reflect a percentage of damage depending of the stats of the source. Once retaliation becomes powerful, the duration will be cut significantly and the sources to get it will be reduced to a minimum. We would have maximum duration times as with the resistance buff or even less and the entire problem would be solved.
So yes, I think it would be a lot easier to persuade the devs to turn retaliation into something powerful than taking a look on the engineer stuff.
dulfy-effect: Knowledge is power. But without fame, you are just a freak.
You say that the flamethrower is a mid-range weapon. That is only true for a fraction of a second. That is all it takes for the enemy to close in and start whaling on you.
You say that the flamethrower is a mid-range weapon. That is only true for a fraction of a second. That is all it takes for the enemy to close in and start whaling on you.
Sorry but thats just…… ughh i dont want to be mean.
Ok thats true for any ranged weapon in this game no matter the range.
So you’re basically telling me you just want to abuse AoE Auto Attacks.
Yes exactly what I was thinking … people want all the rewards of using an FT, but none of the risk. Again, I’m still waiting for someone to give us a practical reason for why this should change, given that Engi’s have other options for PVP/WvW settings that don’t get their faces melted off because of retal … I doubt we will see one either because these complaints don’t recognize that the ability to choose IS the answer to not melting to retal.
The issue is that retaliation unfairly punishes certain skills more than others. Why should Flamethrower take 5x more retaliation damage per second than a greatsword swing?
Let’s be honest here if we are going to continue the conversation; if there isn’t a consensus on the risk/reward structure of this weapon, there is little point in discussing whether it needs a change … or a nerf. If you are the kind of player that uses this weapon in that situation, then I wouldn’t exactly call that punishment unfair … I think it’s fits the situation perfectly. I’ve already said it many times; maybe it’s worth repeating; don’t use FT on people with retal. It’s not like this game doesn’t have boon clearing in it … the more we talk about it, the more it seems to me that FT rewards players that think about their situations more than any other weapon Engi has and right punishes those that faceroll. I think that’s a great weapon design.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
Retaliation is far too easy to apply in group situations to talk about risk and rewards. Maybe if they toned down heavily its application it would be different, but right now it just makes no sense. It’s all risk and no reward, as that autoattack just can’t be used for the situation its damage is balanced for. And becomes more risky to use the more opponents there are, even if they just don’t do anything – a passive boon will do the damage for them.
It is even more absurd if we consider that the flamethrower has a trait made to push toward a constant use of such kit – Juggernaut. If you have to switch out all the time, what’s the point of such a trait? Its "purity of purpose?
Most advantages of multi-hit skills were nerfed in the first months of the game, anyway – back then foods didn’t even have internal cooldowns, and neither sigils if i remember well. All those traits without an IC are already balanced over multi-hit skills, anyway.
And yet, the disadvantages are the only things that were never toned down.
Retaliation is far too easy to apply in group situations to talk about risk and rewards. Maybe if they toned down heavily its application it would be different, but right now it just makes no sense….
Now THAT is an intelligent way to think of what’s wrong here. Let’s be frank … boons in general are thrown around the game far too easily, to the point where people take for granted a 25 might stack or pseudo-permanence for things like protection, etc…
The solution to this problem isn’t to nerf FT AA. It’s a much broader, gamewide issue than that. For instance, retal could be based on # of hits instead of duration. That gives it a much more defined application.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
It still wouldn’t solve the issue with multi-hit, low damage skills like the flamethrower’s AA (and being an autoattack, it isn’t supposed to have high damage to start with).
Even changing retaliation to a number of hit, it still doesn’t change that you either have to consume all of them (and getting harmed in the process either way) or somehow strip them (just to see them replaced soon thereafter, as this still wouldn’t solve the issue of it being far too commonly applicable).
Seeing as most of the advantages got artificial caps by means of ICDs, they could just do the same with retaliation, by making it so one can’t be harmed by the same instance of retaliation more than X times per second.
If you think it’s an issue that you would eat a few retals because you hit someone with retal, then there is NO solution to this for you. I mean, even someone using a slow weapons will have to eat a retal every once in a while. That’s certainly not a problem.
30 hits of retaliation per autoattack aren’t just “a few hits”. That retaliation damage usually end up being far more than the damage dealt by the engineer itself. And given that the autoattack is supposed to be used versus groups – it’s a cone autoattack with a relatively good range – you’re essentially saying you shouldn’t use an aoe autoattack in situations where it is supposed to be used for, all because of a boon that’s far too easily applicable in group situations.
The “slow weapons” you mention doesn’t suffer from the same issue, so what’s the point of even mentioning them?
Those are all things you should already know, anyway. Frankly speaking, it doesn’t seem like you want to acknowledge these issues, for whatever reason.
(edited by Manuhell.2759)
30 hits of retaliation per autoattack aren’t just “a few hits”. That retaliation damage usually end up being far more than the damage dealt by the engineer itself. And given that the autoattack is supposed to be used versus groups – it’s a cone autoattack with a relatively good range – you’re essentially saying you shouldn’t use an aoe autoattack in situations where it is supposed to be used for, all because of a boon that’s far too easily applicable in group situations.
The “slow weapons” you mention doesn’t suffer from the same issue, so what’s the point of even mentioning them?
Those are all things you should already know, anyway. Frankly speaking, it doesn’t seem like you want to acknowledge these issues, for whatever reason.
Slow weapons do not suffere from the same issue because you can react … unless you’re really slow to begin with. You see, the problem here is the idea you have that a player shouldn’t think. Regardless of how retal is implemented, clearly you don’t want to exercise your choice to not use it if there is a chance that using it gets you killed on retal.
I mean, you can create whatever scenario you want to kill yourself with retal on FT AA … it’s not hard, we know this. But if your going to come into this discussion that even one scenario exists where retal can kill you …. and that’s a problem that renders it unusable DESPITE acknowledging you have options against players with retal that don’t get you killed … then you’re just not being realistic about how player choice impacts successful PVP encounters. For me, that’s a sign of being really obtuse. It’s a non sequitur.
There should absolutely be SEVERE consequences to anyone that take a FT and sinks a full AA into a group of people. That’s just a dumb thing to do. I don’t know about you, but I see little reason to relieve players of the consequences of their dumb actions in a competitive environment.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
But .. why? Why should they take 10x the retaliation damage of a Guardian using Staff auto (longer range, larger cone).
I don’t see how that comparison is relevant. Staff on Guardian doesn’t do the same thing or give the same bonus as FT on Engineer. FT on Engineer isn’t designed based on what staff Guardian does.
The why is simple … because that’s it’s design. A less dismissive answer … because you have to be smart if you want to get the benefit of playing FT in PVP. Is that too much to ask anymore? Players make responsible decisions and deal with the with the consequences in a mature manner? I’m just going to hammer on this over and over: If FT isn’t appropriate for the situation, you don’t use it.
You ask why almost with a tone like Anet has to change it if their isn’t a good answer. You will learn soon enough that there is always an answer to Why, even if you don’t like it.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
Speaking of Guardian, Guardian is the only class that can give allies retaliation like candy. Other classes retaliation are usually limited to only 1 skill or trait or a couple of light fields with a decent recharge so they can’t abuse it as much as Guardians can. So is retaliation really the problem or just fighting Guardians with Flamethrower in general? There’s also a good reason why Guardian is just overall popular in PvP and WvW, why every commander is typically Guardian.
The other issue I see in this topic is that a lot of you are not considering the rest of Flamethrower skill set, just only focused on AA. Flame Burst does potentially the same amount of damage as an AA and only hits the target twice, it’s also a blast finisher, has longer range and just has a 6 second recharge. Air Blast simply knocks enemies away from you, you won’t be affected by it if it reflects back to you, and it also reflects projectiles too when timed right. Napalm is a 10 second long Fire Field so you could easily get another 6 stacks of might with Flame Burst.
The only bugger right now is that you have an extremely outdated skill Smoke Vent. This skill has not been touched since release. Smoke Vent did receive one nerf and that was when they added stability to Juggernaut. FT AA is far from needing help compared to the other skills Engineer has.
(edited by Midontto.5847)
Your arguments just don’t make sense, Obtena. Nothing else works like you describe. Even retaliation is no risk and all reward. Yet using the flamethrower’s autoattack should be such a dangerous action? You can’t be serious.
There shouldn’t be “severe consequences” in using an autoattack in the situation it is designed for – it’s a cone attack that can hit up to three opponents and whose damage its balanced upon such an occurrence (so, not that high). On a weapon that is supposed to not be switched out frequently, due to the Juggernaut trait.
Debating otherwise is foolish, if not outright trolling.
Edit: there are a ton of skills that can either give retaliation or create light fields (that, in turn, can give area retaliation). And given we’re talking about an attack that’s supposed to be used versus multiple enemies, that just raises the chances one of them will be able to apply some area retaliation;
And given they’ve added some little direct damage to napalm as well, even that skill can severely harm the engineer…and you can’t do anything about it, apart for not using it entirely, as given its long duration, enemies can just put retaliation after you’ve put it down and just walk over it (they get some burning, but light fields can be used to heal conditions as well, after all).
(edited by Manuhell.2759)
I guess your point of view is different than mine. Maybe you think there should be no consequences to choices you make; I don’t get that irresponsible thinking. Maybe you think it’s OK making bad choices can complain about the results; I think that lacks maturity.
When you say that FT is designed for hitting large groups of people in PVP, I think that’s just a poor assumption. Why do you assume this weapon was designed as a capable PVP weapon in the first place? Other than ‘weapons design philosophy’, no one really seems to have an answer … or consider it was never intended to be.
In my opinion, an auto attack that does AOE at range is some of the most broken PVP concept you could ever come across in a game … and you think it should be fixed so you can trounce around and melt people with it with no consequence? You are not thinking objectively about how an FT AA change would affect the game. Even if you reduced the number of hits, you still wouldn’t be able to recklessly go and BBQ a group of people with retal. The solution here for now is to make good weapon choices.
If this is even close to what you believe should be happening, I think we have little left to say to each other. As someone else said, it’s obvious to me you just want to abuse a ranged autoattack AOE. Clearly, that’s not the opinion of anyone who cares about the health of the game.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Retaliation
Nada. Only Guardian can distribute retaliation to allies. Mesmer and Engineer could too, but that’s quite random compared to Guardian’s straight forwardness.
And if you’ve noticed, a lot of the other classes only has one-two skills/traits that offer retaliation. A lot of they’re recharge are pretty decent to prevent them from just spamming retaliation.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Light_field
Over half of the light fields that offered are from Guardian. Their Hammer and Staff each offer 2 light fields, Hammer’s can produce light fields with just their auto attack. And we’re also talking about PvP and WvW wise right?
PvP wise, it’s usually a rare chance finding a support Engineer and Centaur Revenant, Mesmer do tend to pick up Well of Eternity…but they only have like 1 blast finisher. Even if others notice the light field, they usually don’t.
WvW zergs are the ones who would frequently use light field, but usually they’re in a coordinated zerg for a lot of the retaliation sharing to happen. Maybe some random people will notice, but again, usually don’t.
Oh yeah and about that strange encounter for Napalm. I think that’s just hilarious. “Hey guys! Let’s just all gather on that fiery ground and I’ll use retaliation!” But you should know well enough that applies to any AoE skills from just about any class. It’s much worse for a Ranger to use Barrage on a bunch of people under retaliation, that’s 60 hits back to them!
(edited by Midontto.5847)
I guess your point of view is different than mine. Maybe you think there should be no consequences to choices you make; I don’t get that irresponsible thinking. Maybe you think it’s OK making bad choices can complain about the results; I think that lacks maturity.
Again, the rest of the game doesn’t work like that. There is no consequence for applying retaliation, it’s no risk and all rewards. An autoattack, that can’t be balanced as anything but a low reward skill, can’t have high risk either. And yet flamethrower’s autoattack is outright unusable in most of the situations, else you end up killing yourself.
When you say that FT is designed for hitting large groups of people in PVP, I think that’s just a poor assumption. Why do you assume this weapon was designed as a capable PVP weapon in the first place? Other than ‘weapons design philosophy’, no one really seems to have an answer … or consider it was never intended to be.
So now you’re even debating that it is supposed to be a weapon designed for hitting multiple enemies, despite all the skills doing so (all while having an autoattack that’s balanced over hitting multiple enemies, and thus doing relatively mediocre damage per target). And all of that is based over retaliation being far too strong toward this weapon. Talk about poor assumptions, huh.
In my opinion, an auto attack that does AOE at range is some of the most broken PVP concept you could ever come across in a game … and you think it should be fixed so you can trounce around and melt people with it with no consequence? You are not thinking objectively about how an FT AA change would affect the game. Even if you reduced the number of hits, you still wouldn’t be able to recklessly go and BBQ a group of people with retal. The solution here for now is to make good weapon choices.
Whereas a commonly applicable boon being able to shut down a weapon by itself is a totally acceptable concept, right?
And we’re talking about an autoattack that wouldn’t be that good even if it were actually useable, in case you’re forgetting about it. With low reward should come low risks as well.
If this is even close to what you believe should be happening, I think we have little left to say to each other. As someone else said, it’s obvious to me you just want to abuse a ranged autoattack AOE. Clearly, that’s not the opinion of anyone who cares about the health of the game.
Yeah, i’m sure having weapons and relative traits being shut down by a single common boon is very healthly for the game.
“Abusing a ranged autoattack AOE”,lol. It would be mediocre even if it was actually useable in the situations it is balanced for.
I agree that we can close the discussion here. I don’t think you ever supposed to want one from the start, since you’re outright trolling.
Oh, Midontto, regarding that napalm, i mentioned it because it didn’t use to have direct damage back then; thus it couldn’t proc retaliation either. They changed it in some patch, putting a direct damage so terrible that you’re, yet again, harmed more than the damage you deal. Except that you can’t do anything about it once it’s down, unlike the autoattack.
(edited by Manuhell.2759)
But that’s such an exaggerated situation in the end. If someone is that willing to upkeep over 10 seconds of retaliation, persistently put up light fields and also continuously use projectile/whirling finishers to clear all the burns they just set themselves up by putting majority of their skills on recharge. It’s a little more plausible if it’s a group that’s somehow all standing there but I don’t really know why you want to fight against a group by yourself. You’ll usual end up having allies to back you up or vice versa.
To be honest, Flamethrower is my favorite kit in Engineer all in all, I’ve always constantly ran it in WvW and sometimes in PvP. In WvW I don’t mind being part of groups or just roaming, groups whenever you encounter a battle I always just try to sneak past the front liners and just burn down the back. Always have some utility and options open so you can disengage and you’d only end up slightly damaged. Roaming is so much fun with Flamethrower though, especially if you’re just built tanky with Scrapper traits. But all in all my overall encounters with retaliation hasn’t been that much of a big deal. Sometimes it creeps up on you and you suddenly blow up, but a lot of times usually not. If you guys have been having like constantly every 10 minutes you encounter people with high retaliation upkeep, I feel like that’s just unfortunate.
I just wanted to say is that you should just give it a chance. If playing with Flamethrower that way doesn’t work, you should try it another way.
So you’re basically telling me you just want to abuse AoE Auto Attacks.
Yes exactly what I was thinking … people want all the rewards of using an FT, but none of the risk. Again, I’m still waiting for someone to give us a practical reason for why this should change, given that Engi’s have other options for PVP/WvW settings that don’t get their faces melted off because of retal … I doubt we will see one either because these complaints don’t recognize that the ability to choose IS the answer to not melting to retal.
The issue is that retaliation unfairly punishes certain skills more than others. Why should Flamethrower take 5x more retaliation damage per second than a greatsword swing?
Let’s be honest here if we are going to continue the conversation; if there isn’t a consensus on the risk/reward structure of this weapon, there is little point in discussing whether it needs a change … or a nerf. If you are the kind of player that uses this weapon in that situation, then I wouldn’t exactly call that punishment unfair … I think it’s fits the situation perfectly. I’ve already said it many times; maybe it’s worth repeating; don’t use FT on people with retal. It’s not like this game doesn’t have boon clearing in it … the more we talk about it, the more it seems to me that FT rewards players that think about their situations more than any other weapon Engi has and right punishes those that faceroll. I think that’s a great weapon design.
I have not really touched this game sinceabout three months after expansion came out, been to busy with real life, but from what i have been reading FT and Retal are still interacting together like they always have, yes? Gotta agree with you here, while i disagree with some of your earlier statements in this thread. FT needs that risk vs reward. I can not tell you the number of times i have wrecked an entire 5 man group just with flame thrower and nades. If not for retaliation i would dominate to the point of it being way to op to warrant being in the game. Be sneaky, remove boons, then AA away and watch everyone die.
Everyone said my FT,DP, nades, Turrets builds were not viable, and people still say that, but unless i get an unlucky match up, i tend to do just fine.
Retal needs minor adjustments, i’ll agree to that, but i dont think it hurts FT as much as people thinks it does.
But that’s such an exaggerated situation in the end. If someone is that willing to upkeep over 10 seconds of retaliation, persistently put up light fields and also continuously use projectile/whirling finishers to clear all the burns they just set themselves up by putting majority of their skills on recharge. It’s a little more plausible if it’s a group that’s somehow all standing there but I don’t really know why you want to fight against a group by yourself. You’ll usual end up having allies to back you up or vice versa.
To be honest, Flamethrower is my favorite kit in Engineer all in all, I’ve always constantly ran it in WvW and sometimes in PvP. In WvW I don’t mind being part of groups or just roaming, groups whenever you encounter a battle I always just try to sneak past the front liners and just burn down the back. Always have some utility and options open so you can disengage and you’d only end up slightly damaged. Roaming is so much fun with Flamethrower though, especially if you’re just built tanky with Scrapper traits. But all in all my overall encounters with retaliation hasn’t been that much of a big deal. Sometimes it creeps up on you and you suddenly blow up, but a lot of times usually not. If you guys have been having like constantly every 10 minutes you encounter people with high retaliation upkeep, I feel like that’s just unfortunate.
I just wanted to say is that you should just give it a chance. If playing with Flamethrower that way doesn’t work, you should try it another way.
I love my flame thrower and i think you hit the nail on the head, I am reminded of something Bruce Lee once said.
To quote Bruce Lee, “Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.
Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”
Be water my friends, Flame throwers is all about adapting to your situation and flowing with those boons and debuffs before you crash into the enemy like a wave of flame.
tl;dr Play Hammer Scrapper like everyone else.
Retal needs minor adjustments, i’ll agree to that, but i dont think it hurts FT as much as people thinks it does.
That’s summed up right there. There is no reason to make some big adjustment to FT AA for the frequency retal is encountered, EVEN if it kills you. There is no substitute for playing smart and making intelligent decisions. Unloading a ranged AOE AA into a group of people is a massively risky move in ANY MMO PVP setting. Why it should be different in GW2, no one can seem to explain, though it is obvious it will enable less skilled players a great deal.
Does ranger’s or ele’s AoEs suffer as much as FT?
“Only problem with the Engineer is
that it makes every other class in the game boring to play.”
Hawks
that it makes every other class in the game boring to play.”
Hawks
Does ranger’s or ele’s AoEs suffer as much as FT?
I don’t know … what ones are you thinking about? If you don’t really want to be specific, I don’t see the point you’re trying to make.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
I don’t know very much about other profs. Is there any ranger or ele AoE that suffer as much as FT from group retaliation?
“Only problem with the Engineer is
that it makes every other class in the game boring to play.”
Hawks
that it makes every other class in the game boring to play.”
Hawks
I don’t know very much about other profs. Is there any ranger or ele AoE that suffer as much as FT from group retaliation?
Yes, it’s just that you don’t often get opportunities to kill yourself like you can with FT. If Ele were to drop Air overload, Meteor and then IB4 onto a group that didn’t move but had retal they’d die quite quickly, thing is people tend to move out of red circles like that where we can continually move with that group and get at least a few of the potential 5 targets per hit, so again we see the opportunity to kill ourselves more often.
I still find plenty of times where I can use FT. It’s just not worth it against organized groups. I treat it more like a mop, when we’re slaughtering the enemies I can pop FT in to get more bags. When things get tougher it’s not always the best option. If it weren’t for retal I think we’d be using FT a lot more often.
I don’t know very much about other profs. Is there any ranger or ele AoE that suffer as much as FT from group retaliation?
Yes, it’s just that you don’t often get opportunities to kill yourself like you can with FT. If Ele were to drop Air overload, Meteor and then IB4 onto a group that didn’t move but had retal they’d die quite quickly, thing is people tend to move out of red circles like that where we can continually move with that group and get at least a few of the potential 5 targets per hit, so again we see the opportunity to kill ourselves more often.
I still find plenty of times where I can use FT. It’s just not worth it against organized groups. I treat it more like a mop, when we’re slaughtering the enemies I can pop FT in to get more bags. When things get tougher it’s not always the best option. If it weren’t for retal I think we’d be using FT a lot more often.
The damage done by that hypothetical Ele will be comparable to the damage we get from FT 1 too?
“Only problem with the Engineer is
that it makes every other class in the game boring to play.”
Hawks
that it makes every other class in the game boring to play.”
Hawks
I don’t know very much about other profs. Is there any ranger or ele AoE that suffer as much as FT from group retaliation?
Yes, it’s just that you don’t often get opportunities to kill yourself like you can with FT. If Ele were to drop Air overload, Meteor and then IB4 onto a group that didn’t move but had retal they’d die quite quickly, thing is people tend to move out of red circles like that where we can continually move with that group and get at least a few of the potential 5 targets per hit, so again we see the opportunity to kill ourselves more often.
I still find plenty of times where I can use FT. It’s just not worth it against organized groups. I treat it more like a mop, when we’re slaughtering the enemies I can pop FT in to get more bags. When things get tougher it’s not always the best option. If it weren’t for retal I think we’d be using FT a lot more often.
The damage done by that hypothetical Ele will be comparable to the damage we get from FT 1 too?
A lot more, but again, we’re talking about how easy it is to hit. That’s the huge strength of FT is that it’d be constant pressure. It’s not bad damage that can be done from outside melee range and even hits through obstructions. It’s a better loot stick, but it’s drawback is retal. I’m fine with how it is currently designed.
So it hits a lot, for not so much damage, but it kills you if you use it. Meanwhile, other AoEs do more damage with less hits and are safer. I honestly don’t think the drawback is properly designed.
“Only problem with the Engineer is
that it makes every other class in the game boring to play.”
Hawks
that it makes every other class in the game boring to play.”
Hawks
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