Guild Wars 2

This basically doesnt hurt people that like to spam grenades but I personally tried to get a pistol/shield/grenade kit with constant switching working and because I use pistol condition damage is the main damage soruce. However it is very annoying to basically have to switch every 3 seconds.

This skill forces you to stay in the kit the whole time which – to me – is antifun.

…constant switching…
However it is very annoying to basically have to switch every 3 seconds.

Working as intended?

I consoder this a general gameplay flaw. Yes it is also affecting my own playstyle but most people I talked to that wanted to run an efficient dungeon build are annoyed by the superior nature of pure grenade spam. And one problme leading to that is that 1 and 2 are meant to be spammed. 3 sec cooldown is just to fast to even get a poison volley off.

And again. It would be a change for more versatility but people that like to press 543211121112311145 can continue to do that.

to be fair…
5s cd on shrapnel IS really odd.
It is incredibly short for such a strong skill.
8-10s cd is average for most weapons #2
So take that.

Then look at the damage it does.
grenade 1 has a .5s cast, scales at .478.
Grenade 2 has a .5s cast, 5s CD, scales at .524, and has a 12s bleed
aka. 1.57 damage scaling with 3 hits. Direct damage.
so it does more direct damage, and bleeds as well.

With grenadier and 20% cdr.
4s cd, 15s bleedx3

12 stacks of bleed by yourself, without even including the 5% chance to bleed trait, or 30% chance to bleed on crit trait, which everyone in their right mind also grabs.

And remember, this is all aoe.

Frankly, I am pretty sure shrapnel is supposed to be 10second cooldown. with the exact same stats it has now.
schrapnel is the perfect example of grenades outperforming everything else in the engineer’s arsenal by such a large margin, that the rest are effectively unplayable.

Finally someone that actually analyzed the skill and posted arguments. Grenadekit delivers so many reasons to not ever swap out of it again. Spam insane damage from insane range with decent support for the rest of your team (poisonfield, chilled, blind, 25 invul stacks). I mean what the kitten????

The 1 spam is strong enough already so atleast allow us to cast 2-5 and swap back to our other weapons but right now it is just by far more efficient to just keep roatiting within the kit and forget everything else.

And I also find it kitten that they implemented autotargeting only underwater with pretty much the same stats. What?? Either do it for both or for nothing but not like that. How can they even consider this balanced?

If I was allowed to remake the kit I would do somehting like that:

• 1 and 2 become autotargeting
• 2 and 3 cooldown increase
• 3 also does damage now
• grenadier trait will only offer a 50% chance for a 3rd grenade instead of 100%
• base range + traited range slightly decreased

to understand.
Flame jet has a 1.43 damage coeff over 2.25s. or .63/second.
Hipshot has a .599 .75s, or .798/s
Grenade 1 has .478×2 .5s, or 1.9/s. or 2.8/s with grenadier.

See a problem? Flamethower does get those might stacks, which is nice. Hip shot doesn’t get much, beyond a 1225 rifle vs 969 kit. 26% damage increase. Increasing the effective ratio to 1/s for hipshot.
And that doesnt include vulx3 with every throw. or bleeds on crit x3.

Elem fireball .8/s

..assuming you hit with all 3 grenades each throw. Theorycrafting aside, grenades are only really strong against mindless mobs that routinely stand in a hailstorm of grenades to the face, and equally mindless players (I’m not saying it does not happen, mind you.) If they toned down their damage to the same level as everything else you will never ever see people using them. People who are actually moderately aware/not grabbing coffee right now can already casually stroll aside while I haul my grenades around, the effective damage is quite a bit lower.

In fact this is what I’m most afraid of, that people will actually manage to get the only useful kit engis have destroyed so we have “options” again, consisting of a bunch of equally useless kits that come in a wide range of flavors, so everyone can build their kitten exactly how they want…

Agreeing with wintermute, Grenade is fine, everything else needs a buff.

Can we stop trying to nerf grenades? Yes they are powerful, but the rest of our kit is pretty weak so lets get that up to par before we go suggesting ways to ruin our “big” hitter.

As for Shrapnel, it being 5s isn’t that out there as some have stated, lots of classes have a 4-6s cooldown #2. What should be done is to bring pistol back to nearer its old level for condition stacking to make it a better alternative to using grenades to get some bleeds. Grenades are very much in the “power build” camp and shouldn’t be particuarly great at doing conditions.

The point of kits is to keep them in use for substantial periods before switching to whatever else you want to use.

Constant switching on Engineer is a waste, the only reason you’d switch constantly would be if you have the trait ‘Kit Refinement’ which isn’t that big of an incentive.

And this is ignoring the fact that Grenades are just outright better then anything else on Engies at the moment.

DreamOfACure.4382:

The point of kits is to keep them in use for substantial periods before switching to whatever else you want to use.

… and kits have a 1 second cooldown on swap, why? If you compare to elementalist attunments (the only comparable mechanic), the short cooldown makes it obvious the intended use is to swap in and out of them as the situation dictates. You may personally just go into Grenade kit and sit there for 10min at a time, don’t assume everybody plays the same way. I run tri-kits most of the time and I switch a lot to get the most out of the abilities (I rarely actually use the #1 on anything).

Kithzyan.5034:

DreamOfACure.4382:

The point of kits is to keep them in use for substantial periods before switching to whatever else you want to use.

… and kits have a 1 second cooldown on swap, why? If you compare to elementalist attunments (the only comparable mechanic), the short cooldown makes it obvious the intended use is to swap in and out of them as the situation dictates. You may personally just go into Grenade kit and sit there for 10min at a time, don’t assume everybody plays the same way. I run tri-kits most of the time and I switch a lot to get the most out of the abilities (I rarely actually use the #1 on anything).

That’s perfectly fine, but why would they give engineers other utility skills if they expected everyone to swap between kits constantly? More build variety is a good thing – there’s no point in trying to get them to nerf “single kit” builds.

Yeah buff the others and leave grenades alone. Its our one kit that isnt borked at the moment.

@wintermute:

This is why grenades are a broken concept. They will always be either too bad for sPvP/actually moving mobs and too good vs relatively static targets (which applies for 90% of PvE and then there is still the AoE aspect). I don’t hate the targeting mechanic at all but THIS is the reason they have to change it. Thus my suggestion to make 1 and 2 autotargeting. There would still be travling time and a missrate but it would be way more reliable and allow for better balanced damage.
The “balance change” back in beta were they just added a flat 50% damage boost just to make up for the hard targeting mechanic was kitten and made it the must have vs nonmoving pve targets it is right now.

Dojo.1867:

@wintermute:

This is why grenades are a broken concept. They will always be either too bad for sPvP/actually moving mobs and too good vs relatively static targets (which applies for 90% of PvE and then there is still the AoE aspect).

What do you mean by broken concept, sounds to me like the concept is working as it should or are you saying its a bad concept?

What grenades need is the ability to throw them as far as possible even if the circle is out of range. Right now I consider them broken because of this.

wintermute.4096:

In fact this is what I’m most afraid of, that people will actually manage to get the only useful kit engis have destroyed so we have “options” again, consisting of a bunch of equally useless kits that come in a wide range of flavors, so everyone can build their kitten exactly how they want…

Exactly. Grenades are super efficient for the class, but only average in the context of what other classes are capable of in PvE, sPvP, tPvP, and WvW. It’s a kit that instead of being “powerful”, is merely above average in multiple categories for a class that is merely above average in a lot of categories. The problem is that quite a few of our other kits are simply not compelling enough from a min-max standpoint.

Take flamethrower for example: It’s buggy, trait intensive, and it’s control options are kind of eclipsed by other kits from a cooldown and effectiveness standpoint… but could you imagine the kit if the bugs were fixed and sigils worked with it? how interesting would a multi-hit, crit-based kit be with all of the on-crit sigils?

Yet, that functionality simply doesn’t exist.

I play multiple classes in PvP and WvW. I have multiple 80s in PvE. Compared to what my other classes can bring, I see ‘nades as “good enough” for general use with some of the other kits being inferior, and some of them being excellent in their niche only… that’s not shining praise for the ‘nades, just a comment on the state of the class. That’s also why I can’t understand how anyone would ask for a nerf to the grenades.

Dojo.1867:

@wintermute:

This is why grenades are a broken concept. They will always be either too bad for sPvP/actually moving mobs and too good vs relatively static targets (which applies for 90% of PvE and then there is still the AoE aspect). I don’t hate the targeting mechanic at all but THIS is the reason they have to change it. Thus my suggestion to make 1 and 2 autotargeting. There would still be travling time and a missrate but it would be way more reliable and allow for better balanced damage.
The “balance change” back in beta were they just added a flat 50% damage boost just to make up for the hard targeting mechanic was kitten and made it the must have vs nonmoving pve targets it is right now.

I don’t know, I find the “awkward but somehow very effective” concept to fit the Enge to a T. Just look at rifle: it’s full of confusing contradictions that are somehow extremely effective when used well. I think what the class REALLY needs though is bug fixes and a buff to flamethrower, because it’s our other “general use, equip all the time” option.

Kithzyan.5034:

… and kits have a 1 second cooldown on swap, why? If you compare to elementalist attunments (the only comparable mechanic), the short cooldown makes it obvious the intended use is to swap in and out of them as the situation dictates. You may personally just go into Grenade kit and sit there for 10min at a time, don’t assume everybody plays the same way. I run tri-kits most of the time and I switch a lot to get the most out of the abilities (I rarely actually use the #1 on anything).

Kits have 1 second cooldown cause Engineers are well-designed while Elementalists are not

I don’t sit in the Grenade kit all the time, I use the Flamethrower Kit. I only refer to the Grenade kit because one cannot avoid referring to it, since it’s obviously and undeniably the strongest kit at the moment.

Elementalists are pretty trashy right now as far as I’m concerned.

The design expects all players to constantly switch between elements and be “jack of all trades” at all times, which is an affront to the main appeal of elementalists, the appeal of traits, and the appeal of every other class:

To be able to specialize into a specific style and excel in the function of that style.

Back to my point: When I say “substantial periods” I meant like 10 to 15 seconds.

Even you (who probably went down the Tools traitline) probably stay that long in each kit, so calm your obsessive kitten down.

The thread is about constantly switching, which is like: Every 5 seconds.

DreamOfACure.4382:

Kits have 1 second cooldown cause Engineers are well-designed while Elementalists are not

I would honestly love to see an actual fact to support your claims here. Because all of the developer chatter I read over months of time, indicates other wise.