Guild Wars 2

Hey all! Been a long time since I’ve been on, and I’m coming back to enjoy GW2. So, I’m doing some research, Engineers—and I cannot find anything relevant to crafting a reliable Flamethrower build. Everyone seems to have a very different idea as to how to make Flamethrower effective, and there are few correlations. Yes, I’ve heard greandes and bombs may be more effective. I’ve heard that maybe this isn’t optimal. But the idea of having a terrifying Iron Legion Charr decked out with burning CoF armor, touting a massive flamethrower? That’s appealing.

I found a “Way of the Flamethrower” build that I’ll link here that seems to be pretty comprehensive, however, it also seems VERY dated. Are use Flamethrower Engineers using condition damage now? Power and Precision? What about armour and runes? I could really use some help here, from you experienced Engineers. And again—I don’t need to be told to go grenade. I’m trying to optimize something less-than-optimal and have fun doing it. Thanks!

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/engineer-pve-flamethrower-5716.html

This build editor is out of date.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/72009-a-comprehensive-look-at-the-flamethrower-and-elixir-gun/

Thank you for your feedback. I have looked around in here, and there are some good ideas. However, I’m not even interested in Elixer Gun in the slightest, so I’ll be freeing up that utility slot as well. I made a FEW notes. Still alot to consider.

Let me explain why people always tell, use bombs and/or grenades: Engineer has more skills available then any other class by the kits. The balancing of the class is a bit different to other classes: Engineer auto-attacks are very weak / low average, excluding bomb kit where #1 is the strongest skill on the kit and also the strongest auto-attack over all. It’s not a class mechanic but a class balancing point that you can’t kill anything with your autoattacks not regarding the annomalie bombkit. Even grenade #1 was nerfed hard so it is not really worth to spam anymore.

So, your dream of using flamethrower is very stylisch. But using FT as a permanent weapon is also very very weak. It is not viable to boil this down.

If you really want to use FT as a permanent weapon, make sure

a) that your team deals a lot of damage, because you won’t
b) that your team knows that they are playing as 4,5 people instead of 5 but you do have a lot of fun.
c) that you always do have a group because killing mobs with FT#1 is not fun doesn’t matter how cool it looks.

Good luck good Sir.

Forestnator—

I’ve heard it’s only slightly weaker and very viable, not that it’s game-breakingly impossible. Can you throw us a little math or something to back this up? I’m a little skeptical that it’s truly THAT bad. I’m not the only one that’s tried this.

Flamethrower itself is viable, just the auto attack of it is not.

Flamethrower #1 has a base-DPS of 196, even with the 15% damage trait and 10% damage bonus when the target is burning that’s roughly 250.
Grenade Kit #1 has a base-DPS of 321 (with Grenadier).
Bomb Kit #1 has a base-DPS of roughly 450, assuming it attacks every ~0.91 seconds. With the 10% trait that’s around 492.

Now keep in mind that each grenade will inflict one stack of Vulnerability, meaning a Grenade Kit Engineer will easily reach 20+ stacks on their target; then the base-DPS will be close to 400. A Bomb Kit Engineer with 25 points in Explosives will be able to reach 7-8 stacks, boosting their damage to over 500.
With Precise Sights a Flamethrower Engineer will inflict 3.6 stacks plus condition duration on average, so around 260.

Thanks so much, DesertRose. Is there anything I can do to make it more worthwhile?

Wally.3940:

Forestnator—

I’ve heard it’s only slightly weaker and very viable, not that it’s game-breakingly impossible. Can you throw us a little math or something to back this up? I’m a little skeptical that it’s truly THAT bad. I’m not the only one that’s tried this.

I’ll just post my past experiences, and let it go from there:

Faction.4013:

I went for a spin in the Mists with a Zerker Amulet using an HGH – FT build, and was pretty underwhelmed…

I was at 25 stacks of Might, and was still hitting Flame Jet for under 3600 across the 2 1/2 second cast time on the light & medium target…I can do almost triple that damage with Grenades in the same span of time. Grenade #2 hits for that alone, not counting the Bleed damage. I can squeeze out 3 tosses (Grenade #1 twice, and a Grenade #2), and score 8400+ with Grenades in the 2 1/2 seconds it takes to cast one Flame Jet, and I can sit at 1500 Range.

As much as I wish & pray otherwise, the FT is still not a good weapon choice. It really does irritate the kittening kitten out of me…but it’s just vastly inferior to Grenades & Bombs, sadly.

The Flamethrower is among our LEAST viable kits that we have in terms of both Damage, Defense and Support. Bomb, Tools & Grenade Kits do better damage (by a mile) and the EGun is much better support. There’s absolutely NOTHING that the FT can do that another kit cannot…Smoke Vent > Smoke Bomb / Flash Grenade, Napalm (Fire Field) > Fire Bomb, Air Blast > Big ol’ Bomb, etc.

As much as it irritates me to say, the FT is just a garbage Kit. Until it’s buffed in Damage or other Kits are nerfed, it will remain that way.

This is very disappointing! Ah well—that being the case, it seems that for the time being, this idea will be put on the shelf. Thank you!

Aside from swapping to Flamethrower, using skill #2 and then quickly swapping to another weapon set/kit I cannot think of anything; if you already have the Flamethrower equipped skill #3-#5 are a nice addition though.

What makes the Flamethrower semi-useful is that it can create a fire field with which you can generate Might for your party by using blast finisher in it; however a Bomb Kit Engineer can do this even better because the Bomb Kit comes with a fire field and a blast finisher, and a Grenade Kit Engineer can do it just/almost as good by equipping Bomb Kit.

To add: I really love the idea of FT. It’s so stylish. But sadly it is that bad currently. FT is just an utility kit at the moment with #2 for burst, #3 for knockback, #4 for bad form of fire field and #5 for blindness while stunned/stamping/etc. .Maybe a future change to the FT will change this. Up to this: the bomb kit also do have much style! And it hurts!

If you’re looking for a PvE build this is a fun one that I keep going back to: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/PvE-Dungeon-Speedrun-Zerk-Build

I haven’t done much PvP so I can’t speak to its viability there.

With Flamethrower’s five hits per second it is easy to deal more damage to yourself than the enemy if they have retaliation (1.5k+ per cast), if you are hitting multiple targets with retal, expect near insta-death (4.5k+ per cast plus other incoming damage).
It cannot be emphasized enough how brutally retaliation hard-counters Flamethrower, it’s bad enough on grenades.

Flamethrower also suffers badly from the cone AoE “miss” bug, expect to miss often if you are fighting at close range (which you will be, because the FT only reaches 425 range).

Additionally, Flamethrowers toolbelt skill has an incredibly long cooldown for what it does.

The weapon is good fun though, which definitely means a lot, but simply put, the weapon needs work.

Although, if all you play is PvE, just get zerker stats and run whatever you want, it doesn’t matter. You just need to know when to dodge.

Please ignore the naysayers. The Flamethrower is a more than viable choice.

Wally.3940:

Are use Flamethrower Engineers using condition damage now? Power and Precision? What about armour and runes? I could really use some help here, from you experienced Engineers. And again—I don’t need to be told to go grenade. I’m trying to optimize something less-than-optimal and have fun doing it. Thanks!

Full Berserker is usual, with either Altruism or Scholar runes depending on whether you want to lean more toward support or DPS. Pair it with the Elixir Gun and whatever third utility you feel like running. If I’m doing a Might stacking rotation I slot in Rocket Boots. If I’m concerned with more utilitarian support, I’ll use Elixir R for the area revive or Elixir U for the projectile wall.

The Flamethrower does dish out less damage than the Grenade Kit and Bomb Kit in DPS centric setups, but it’s still a more than viable setup and satisfies a more hybrid playstyle with its natural synergy with the Elixir Gun. Besides, it’s fun.