Guild Wars 2

Here is a comparison of Flamethrower skills with those of the Guardians Staff:
Given 2000 power

Flame Jet vs Wave of Wrath (Cone AoE)

• Damage: ~500 per second + potential burn every 3 seconds vs ~ 1000 per second (Aftercast ensures damage evens out over time)

• Range: 425 vs 600

• Targets: 3 vs 5

Flame Blast vs Orb of Light (detonating projectile)

• Damage: ~ 500 (1000 blast) vs 1000 300 heal (500 blast 900 heal)

• Range: 600 vs 1200
  
  * Targets: 3 vs 5

• Cooldown: 6 vs 3 (12 if blasted)

Air Blast vs Symbol of Swiftness (Cone KB vs AoE Swiftness/light field)
not particularly comparable, but here are the stats

• Damage: 2 second burn vs 200 damage per second (10 seconds)

• Targets: 3 vs 5(unlimited friendlies)

• Cooldown: 15 vs 15

Napalm vs Empower
with Napalms primary use being stacking might with flame shield, this is more comparable than it would seem at first glance

• Damage: 1 second burn per tick vs 1700 healing

• Effective range: Tiny 50×400 strip vs 600 circular AoE

• Might: 5 second flame shield if chained carefully with leap vs 12 stacks AoE

• Cooldown: 30 vs 20

Smoke Vent vs Line of Warding

• Details: 5 second AoE blind vs 5 second area denial/knockdown

• Effective range: 180 vs 50×400 strip

• Cooldown: 20 vs 40

So given this comparison, the Engineers Flamethrower stacks up as a much weaker variation of the Guardians Staff.

Is this an issue?

Edit: seems BB code isn’t working… The forums appear to be experiencing issues

Any time i look at cooldowns, they appear painfully arbitrary.

Your numbers sound a bit off. Flame Jet deals a lot more than 500 DPS, especially with 2000 Power.

Also, you say this about Napalm:

Brew Pinch.5731:

Might: 5 second flame shield if chained carefully with leap vs 12 stacks AoE

Are you insinuating that people use Napalm for Fire Shield?

Phineas Poe.3018:

Your numbers sound a bit off. Flame Jet deals a lot more than 500 DPS, especially with 2000 Power.

Also, you say this about Napalm:

Brew Pinch.5731:

Might: 5 second flame shield if chained carefully with leap vs 12 stacks AoE

Are you insinuating that people use Napalm for Fire Shield?

I guarantee you the numbers are accurate, they are copied down from in-game values on my Engi and guard.
Perhaps you are confusing “per second” with per cast. Flame Jet is a 2.25 second cast dealing 1k base before armour. Wave of Wrath has a 0.5 second cast dealing 500 base damage per cast.

In PvP, no-one stands in the tiny strip dealt by Napalm, it’s only use there is for stacking might with blasts or flame shield.
The skill can be extremely effective for stacking burn in PvE though.

Brew Pinch.5731:

Perhaps you are confusing “per second” with per cast. Flame Jet is a 2.25 second cast dealing 1k base before armour. Wave of Wrath has a 0.5 second cast dealing 500 base damage per cast.

Tool tips numbers assume (1) you’re literally not critting at all and (2) that you’re attacking an enemy with 2600 Armor.

Any Flamethrower Engineer is going to have 20+ points in Firearms for Juggernaut. And with Berserker gear? You’re going to crit. You’re going to crit often. I have over 50% in my build. And if you run a build similar to mine with 25 Tools, when you do crit, you’re going to crit for a lot. A lot could be said the same regarding the Guardian Staff, but there’s one key detail you missed in your analysis.

Damage boost traits like Deadly Mixture, Target The Maimed, and Enduring Damage do not affect tool tips, because those multipliers are tacked on after your damage is calculated.

Flame Jet in my build regularly does over 4K a channel, even on heavily armored targets. Light armor targets will get lit up consistently higher, sometimes for over 6K a Flame Jet. Ideally it’s not as strong as what the Bomb Kit or Grenade Kit can do, but Flame Jet doesn’t do 500 DPS. It can easily do 500 per tick.

Brew Pinch.5731:

In PvP, no-one stands in the tiny strip dealt by Napalm, it’s only use there is for stacking might with blasts or flame shield.
The skill can be extremely effective for stacking burn in PvE though.

Right. It’s there for stacking Might with Blast finishers such as Magnetic Inversion, Acid Bomb, Rocket Boots, or detonating your Healing Turret. I would never recommend using Jump Shot to trigger Fire Shield or using Napalm to actually burn targets, the former of which you claimed was its primary use.

But really, let’s compare it to Empower.

Fire field + Blast finisher = 20 second Might stacks (x3)
Empower = 10 second Might stacks (x10)

I personally can stack up to 15 Might by myself with Napalm, and they last significantly longer than Empower does because having 20 Alchemy gives me an additional 20% Boon Duration on top of what Altruism provides (+15%). This is, of course, not taking into consideration that the other 4 people in my party can freely stack Might in Napalm as well as—after all—it lasts for 10 seconds. Bringing a Flamethrower makes stacking to 25 Might an almost trivial experience; the difficulty it takes to reach the cap is dependent only on the laziness of your party members. And because with Fireforged Trigger it only has a 24 second cooldown, it’s relatively easy to re-apply Might stacks as soon as they’ve disappeared.

I find the most consistent rotation is simply doing it every 30 seconds, however, because Magnetic Inversion’s cooldown is so lengthy. I still prefer it to Empower as it allows me to push the full extent of the FT’s DPS with Flame Blast while buffing my allies. When I’m playing on my Guardian and there’s an FT Engi in the group, I usually put away my Staff in favor of a Hammer to stack Might in Napalm through Mighty Blow.

Brew Pinch.5731:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Your numbers sound a bit off. Flame Jet deals a lot more than 500 DPS, especially with 2000 Power.

Also, you say this about Napalm:

Brew Pinch.5731:

Might: 5 second flame shield if chained carefully with leap vs 12 stacks AoE

Are you insinuating that people use Napalm for Fire Shield?

I guarantee you the numbers are accurate, they are copied down from in-game values on my Engi and guard.
Perhaps you are confusing “per second” with per cast. Flame Jet is a 2.25 second cast dealing 1k base before armour. Wave of Wrath has a 0.5 second cast dealing 500 base damage per cast.

In PvP, no-one stands in the tiny strip dealt by Napalm, it’s only use there is for stacking might with blasts or flame shield.
The skill can be extremely effective for stacking burn in PvE though.

Just making sure—did you calculate the actual cast times for each skill? A ton of cast time tooltips are off by a bit. I’d be surprised if guardian staff was actually a half-second. I’d guess maybe .7 or so with aftercast.

Guardian staff is definitely better than engineer flamethrower, but I think that’s intentional since engineers can technically have up to three kits and a weapon set. Grenades are a bit weaker than necro staff, toolkit is a bit weaker than mace/shield, bombs and elixir gun are pretty unique.

4 kits, tho one of them is not offensive. Just wish i could hit 1-3 without having the first two potentially being overridden by a latter one. For a game with a very action oriented combat system, the abundant use of windup on various skills are aggravating.

Tool tips numbers assume (1) you’re literally not critting at all and (2) that you’re attacking an enemy with 2600 Armor

Source?

All damage in the game is calculated with this formula.

Damage = Weapon strength * Power * Skill coefficient / Armor

or
Damage = Utility strength * Power * Skill coefficient / Armor

Conan.8046:

Tool tips numbers assume (1) you’re literally not critting at all and (2) that you’re attacking an enemy with 2600 Armor

Source?

All damage in the game is calculated with this formula.

Damage = Weapon strength * Power * Skill coefficient / Armor

or
Damage = Utility strength * Power * Skill coefficient / Armor

Right. It’s identifying your base damage. As in, before traits and critical hits are taken into consideration. Unless you’d like to point out to me where Precision is in that equation? Besides, it’s the simple nature of how critical hits work given they’re 150% of your base damage. Adding Critical Damage is directly adding to that multiplier. The tool tip doesn’t take that into consideration, but you can figure it out from what it gives you. Somewhat.

As for my “source,” look at what your tool tip says with Deadly Mixture. Now switch it to something else. The number won’t change.

Am I the only person who thinks its a problem that Flamethrower manages to do ADEQUATE damage if you stack might and wear full zerker armor?

There are ways thakittens DPS can be matched at greater ranges and without zerker armor or might stacking. A weapon that forces such close range should do much higher damage when you’re literally specced for maximum damage.

ad·e·quate, adjective
1. satisfactory or acceptable in quality or quantity.

VIVorcha.7853:

Am I the only person who thinks its a problem that Flamethrower manages to do satisfactory damage if you stack might and wear full zerker armor?

VIVorcha.7853:

Am I the only person who thinks its a problem that Flamethrower manages to do acceptable damage if you stack might and wear full zerker armor?

Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

Conan.8046:

Tool tips numbers assume (1) you’re literally not critting at all and (2) that you’re attacking an enemy with 2600 Armor

Source?

All damage in the game is calculated with this formula.

Damage = Weapon strength * Power * Skill coefficient / Armor

or
Damage = Utility strength * Power * Skill coefficient / Armor

I am studying engineering maths in germany which is known by it’s qualtitiy in engineering. I always wonder where this formula is from.

I have another formula, which is independent from irational skill coefficients:

((Weaopnstrength + Power)/Armor) * Basic_Skill_damage * Power/916

While basic Skill damage is the basic damage of any skill at 916 power. And Basic_skill_damage * power/916 is indeed the visual value shown in the tool tips. Weaopnstrength + Power is your Attack value shown in the hero panel.

This formula works. The usual formula on wiki… I don’t know who created this one but he had not that much knowledge about systems and measurements. That’s why he needed this “skill coefficient” which have to correct his wrong formula.

Greetings, prove me wrong.

XelNigma.6315:

ad·e·quate, adjective
1. satisfactory or acceptable in quality or quantity.

VIVorcha.7853:

Am I the only person who thinks its a problem that Flamethrower manages to do satisfactory damage if you stack might and wear full zerker armor?

VIVorcha.7853:

Am I the only person who thinks its a problem that Flamethrower manages to do acceptable damage if you stack might and wear full zerker armor?

Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

Somebody has missed the point entirely.

It only does acceptable damage if you stack might and wear full zerker armor. Read: It is necessary to fully spec for damage to get just an average performance out of it.

VIVorcha.7853:

It only does acceptable damage if you stack might and wear full zerker armor.

So you find acceptable damage unacceptable?

I’m just messing with you. I know what you mean, its just if you take the meaning of the words you’re using it means something else.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Tool tips numbers assume (1) you’re literally not critting at all and (2) that you’re attacking an enemy with 2600 Armor.

Exactly, when setting out to make a comparison it is most accurate to use the same stat base for both cases. This is what I have done.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Any Flamethrower Engineer is going to have 20+ points in Firearms for Juggernaut. And with Berserker gear? You’re going to crit. You’re going to crit often. I have over 50% in my build. And if you run a build similar to mine with 25 Tools, when you do crit, you’re going to crit for a lot. A lot could be said the same regarding the Guardian Staff

I’ve put your key sentence here in bold to reinforce your own point. Both professions are capable of wearing berserker’s gear and for comparisons sake discussing crit values is irrelevant.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Damage boost traits like Deadly Mixture, Target The Maimed, and Enduring Damage do not affect tool tips, because those multipliers are tacked on after your damage is calculated.

True, spending all trait points to achieve maximum damage when not dodging (clearly a PvE only trait) will equalise the damage potential between Flame Jet and Wave of Wrath IF you ignore similar traits on Guardian: Fiery Wrath, Radiant Power, Elusive Power and Power of the Virtuous.
(Elusive Power allows more damage at low endurance, meaning the trait is significantly more powerful than Enduring damage, which requires max endurance)

The reality is that, again, these traits are irrelevant when comparing base damage.
Both professions have them available and if required I would argue that the Guardian’s were better, that is distracting from my point however.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Flame Jet in my build regularly does over 4K a channel, even on heavily armored targets. Light armor targets will get lit up consistently higher, sometimes for over 6K a Flame Jet. Ideally it’s not as strong as what the Bomb Kit or Grenade Kit can do, but Flame Jet doesn’t do 500 DPS. It can easily do 500 per tick.

Incredible, I have maxed out my Mesmer for PvE and one Warlock bolt can hit for 10k+

My point with this comparison wasn’t to demand huge damage buffs, but to point out that there is precedent for providing buffs to the Flamethrower, given that when compared with a very similar weapon:

• It deals similar damage

• At a shorter range

• To fewer targets

Personally I would most prefer to see the range increase, given this precedent and since the animation is already 600 range, it seems the most logical step to take and would fix a bug in the process. How efficient.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Just making sure—did you calculate the actual cast times for each skill? A ton of cast time tooltips are off by a bit. I’d be surprised if guardian staff was actually a half-second. I’d guess maybe .7 or so with aftercast.

Good point.

I just went and performed a lot of comparisons just setting autoattack on the heavy PvP golem with no traits spent wearing soldiers amulet and both finish consistently in the 30-35 second range.

So it would appear that given the aftercast, they both even out in damage over time.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Guardian staff is definitely better than engineer flamethrower, but I think that’s intentional since engineers can technically have up to three kits and a weapon set. Grenades are a bit weaker than necro staff, toolkit is a bit weaker than mace/shield, bombs and elixir gun are pretty unique.

I agree, Engineer’s are much more effective defensively than offensively and I really enjoy that myself.
I do think that there is precedent for a range increase on Flame Jet however.

Brew Pinch.5731:

I agree, Engineer’s are much more effective defensively than offensively and I really enjoy that myself.
I do think that there is precedent for a range increase on Flame Jet however.

Oh definitely. Flamethrower could use a couple tweaks; since most (all? not sure) of its skills and traits have been changed since beta, I don’t think the devs had time to really polish it up well. Range increase would help although I think the best thing would be to give it just a bigger area of effect in general. The biggest problem with it is that new players have trouble hitting anything with it, which just feels wrong because it’s a freaking flamethrower.

Forestnator.6298:

Conan.8046:

Tool tips numbers assume (1) you’re literally not critting at all and (2) that you’re attacking an enemy with 2600 Armor

Source?

All damage in the game is calculated with this formula.

Damage = Weapon strength * Power * Skill coefficient / Armor

or
Damage = Utility strength * Power * Skill coefficient / Armor

I am studying engineering maths in germany which is known by it’s qualtitiy in engineering. I always wonder where this formula is from.

I have another formula, which is independent from irational skill coefficients:

((Weaopnstrength + Power)/Armor) * Basic_Skill_damage * Power/916

While basic Skill damage is the basic damage of any skill at 916 power. And Basic_skill_damage * power/916 is indeed the visual value shown in the tool tips. Weaopnstrength + Power is your Attack value shown in the hero panel.

This formula works. The usual formula on wiki… I don’t know who created this one but he had not that much knowledge about systems and measurements. That’s why he needed this “skill coefficient” which have to correct his wrong formula.

Greetings, prove me wrong.

Well, previous testing has shown damage to scale linearly with power. Your formula is not linear with respect to power, so either you’re wrong or all previous tests are.

I know which way I suspect it is

I’ve found that power scales linearly as well. I have a theory on how to test weapon strength, but it’ll take me awhile to do.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Brew Pinch.5731:

I agree, Engineer’s are much more effective defensively than offensively and I really enjoy that myself.
I do think that there is precedent for a range increase on Flame Jet however.

Oh definitely. Flamethrower could use a couple tweaks; since most (all? not sure) of its skills and traits have been changed since beta, I don’t think the devs had time to really polish it up well. Range increase would help although I think the best thing would be to give it just a bigger area of effect in general. The biggest problem with it is that new players have trouble hitting anything with it, which just feels wrong because it’s a freaking flamethrower.

Yep, there are definitely some frustrating issues with the cone AoE mechanics in this game but they are covered quite comprehensively in the other FT thread on this forum.

I really just wanted to start a discussion specifically about in inconsistency between skill details.
The Flame Jet range issue specifically has been a pet peeve of mine since I first made an Engineer and noticed the animation was much longer than the effective range of the skill.

I’m back! I did some naked runs (no sigils, weapons, traits, armor, trinkets) and used the following weapons:

Dire Krytan Rifle (751-918) 834.5
Dire Krytan Rifle of Earth (812 – 992) 902
Apothecary Krait Shooter (873-1067) 970
Apothecary’s Pearl Blunderbuss( 986-1205) 1095.5

Going from Fine, to Masterwork, to Rare, to Exotic Rifle. And when equipped, I received the following damages for Hip Shot:

191
207
222
251

Now, if the way power is determined is as forestnator described, then the increases in damage from different attack ratings would scale based off of an addition 916 power, much like how toughness and armor scale. To that point, we should get a combined “attack” value of

1750.5
1818
1887
2011.5

And thus, each damage should be the following percentage increase based on the lowest value:

0%
3.86%
7.80%
14.9%

However, looking at the damage scores of the weapon, we instead get the following increases:

0%
8.38%
16.2%
31.4%

So the “weapon strength + power” model is obviously flawed. However, compare this to the increases in average weapon attack power listed previously:

0%
8.09%
16.2%
31.3%

With only the first value with any meaningful deviation. Thus, with the way that weapon damage scales with weapon attack, we can conclude a rather direct relationship: damage scales linearly with weapon attack, and has no coefficients to speak of.

We also know that power scales linearly with no coefficients to speak of. So, we have this:

Damage = Weapon Attack (random number between attack ranges) x Power x (Unknown value) / Armor

Not including additional modifiers. With the concluded linear relationships of weapon attack, power, and armor, this leaves only one thing: the unknown value.

What would we call this unknown value? All we know is that it depends on the weapon skill used. Therefore, we would call this a skill coefficient.

This makes sense when you think about it: if you bake the skill coefficients into the weapon skills, then this removes an otherwise very powerful variable when leveling up. Ultimately, all skills need to have their damage calculated at any level with any loadout of equipment, and the easiest way to do this is to establish a base modifier for every skill that determines how much of the power that character uses in any attack. It is quite similar to the game Monster Hunter in that regard.

BTW I’ve taken engineering classes, too. They’re quite useful, and I’d recommend a few engineering courses to anyone in college, since they teach some basic problem solving skills.

TyHW.2783:

Forestnator.6298:

Conan.8046:

Tool tips numbers assume (1) you’re literally not critting at all and (2) that you’re attacking an enemy with 2600 Armor

Source?

All damage in the game is calculated with this formula.

Damage = Weapon strength * Power * Skill coefficient / Armor

or
Damage = Utility strength * Power * Skill coefficient / Armor

I am studying engineering maths in germany which is known by it’s qualtitiy in engineering. I always wonder where this formula is from.

I have another formula, which is independent from irational skill coefficients:

((Weaopnstrength + Power)/Armor) * Basic_Skill_damage * Power/916

While basic Skill damage is the basic damage of any skill at 916 power. And Basic_skill_damage * power/916 is indeed the visual value shown in the tool tips. Weaopnstrength + Power is your Attack value shown in the hero panel.

This formula works. The usual formula on wiki… I don’t know who created this one but he had not that much knowledge about systems and measurements. That’s why he needed this “skill coefficient” which have to correct his wrong formula.

Greetings, prove me wrong.

Well, previous testing has shown damage to scale linearly with power. Your formula is not linear with respect to power, so either you’re wrong or all previous tests are.

I know which way I suspect it is

Previous testing needs a “skill coefficient”. You can correct any wrong formula with a coefficient. No mather if it is linear or not – everything can be linear for close intervalls.

Just put some realistic numbers in the wiki formula – I never got a realistic result.

Forestnator.6298:

TyHW.2783:

Forestnator.6298:

Conan.8046:

Tool tips numbers assume (1) you’re literally not critting at all and (2) that you’re attacking an enemy with 2600 Armor

Source?

All damage in the game is calculated with this formula.

Damage = Weapon strength * Power * Skill coefficient / Armor

or
Damage = Utility strength * Power * Skill coefficient / Armor

I am studying engineering maths in germany which is known by it’s qualtitiy in engineering. I always wonder where this formula is from.

I have another formula, which is independent from irational skill coefficients:

((Weaopnstrength + Power)/Armor) * Basic_Skill_damage * Power/916

While basic Skill damage is the basic damage of any skill at 916 power. And Basic_skill_damage * power/916 is indeed the visual value shown in the tool tips. Weaopnstrength + Power is your Attack value shown in the hero panel.

This formula works. The usual formula on wiki… I don’t know who created this one but he had not that much knowledge about systems and measurements. That’s why he needed this “skill coefficient” which have to correct his wrong formula.

Greetings, prove me wrong.

Well, previous testing has shown damage to scale linearly with power. Your formula is not linear with respect to power, so either you’re wrong or all previous tests are.

I know which way I suspect it is

Previous testing needs a “skill coefficient”. You can correct any wrong formula with a coefficient. No mather if it is linear or not – everything can be linear for close intervalls.

Just put some realistic numbers in the wiki formula – I never got a realistic result.

The odd thing is, when I put realistic numbers into the wiki, I got realistic results.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I’m back! I did some naked runs (no sigils, weapons, traits, armor, trinkets) and used the following weapons:

Dire Krytan Rifle (751-918) 834.5
Dire Krytan Rifle of Earth (812 – 992) 902
Apothecary Krait Shooter (873-1067) 970
Apothecary’s Pearl Blunderbuss( 986-1205) 1095.5

Going from Fine, to Masterwork, to Rare, to Exotic Rifle. And when equipped, I received the following damages for Hip Shot:

191
207
222
251

I am missing some numbers here. Skill basic value of hip shot is 251 (at 916 base power).
According to my formula:

1) (751(min)/918(max)+916)/Armor *251 * 916/916 = 191 (191 according to your measurements) —> 2191 – 2410 Armor

2) (812(min)/992(max)+916)/Armor *251 * 916/916 = 207 —> 2095 – 2314 Armor

3) (873(min)/1067(max)+916)/Armor *251 * 916/916 =222 —> 2023 – 2242 Armor

4) (986(min)/1205(max)+916)/Armor *251 * 916/916 =251 —> 1905 – 2121Armor

So either your measurements are incorrect or the numbers or the formula. What I always wonder is: no mather what skill you are reagarding, 916 additional power always double the tool tipp value for every skill. This value multiplied with Attackvalue/Armor always gave me back right numbers in my measurements. The wiki formula doesn’t. Pls show me an example with wiki numbers.

You’re changing armor values for each measurement to fit your assumption. That is a big no-no in science. Armor values are constant across all measurements: the only thing that I changed was weapon attack strength.

Here’s an example where your formula doesn’t work as well: assume doubled power:

(1205 + 1832) / 2121 × 251 × 1832/916=

3037 / 2121 × 251 × 2 = 718

And everyone knows 718 is not double 251. So it is your formula that doesn’t give a realistic result.

I still think this is comparing apples to oranges. Engineers function fundamentally different compared to guardians, and their other skills, utility and weapons are just too different to compare single weapons.

You could compare the place Flame Jet has in the arsenal of a FT-based / Kit-based Engineer to the place Wrath has for a Staff-based Guardian, in regards to how your auto-attack works. In the process of which there are a few issues:

• 10s weapon swapping delay on the Guardian vs no effective delay on the Engineer.
• 2-4 autoattacks on the Engineer versus a fixed 2 on the Guardian.
• Stat-allocations for Staff-Guardians aren’t equal to FT-Engineers, leading to different scaling models. Stat-allocations in regards to trait lines also differ.

It’s not quite as easy as pointing to the weapon only and saying “Hey, they got it to s much better!”. As much as I’d like FT to be the most kitten thing I can wield, the comparison won’t work that way.

Carighan.6758:

• 10s weapon swapping delay on the Guardian vs no effective delay on the Engineer.
• 2-4 autoattacks on the Engineer versus a fixed 2 on the Guardian.

This is a cost/benefit related to engineers requiring to sacrifice utility for additional weapons.
Cost = Utility slot
Benefit = Instant swapping

It is misleading to imply that the cost in this relationship is the significant disparity in effectiveness of kit weapons and the weapons available to other professions. I don’t believe it has anything to do with how effective kits should be.

Carighan.6758:

• Stat-allocations for Staff-Guardians aren’t equal to FT-Engineers, leading to different scaling models. Stat-allocations in regards to trait lines also differ.

Stat/trait allocations vary wildly, are personal preference and are irrelevant in this discussion of the comparison.

Given the same stats, flamethrower auto has significantly less range and hits less targets. I contend that this disparity is completely arbitrary and worthy of investigation on that basis.

I am certainly not aiming to imply that flamethrower should be better than any other weapon, but I do believe it deserves to be more closely balanced with it’s counterparts.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

You’re changing armor values for each measurement to fit your assumption. That is a big no-no in science. Armor values are constant across all measurements: the only thing that I changed was weapon attack strength.

Here’s an example where your formula doesn’t work as well: assume doubled power:

(1205 + 1832) / 2121 × 251 × 1832/916=

3037 / 2121 × 251 × 2 = 718

And everyone knows 718 is not double 251. So it is your formula that doesn’t give a realistic result.

You did not understand anything. I did not choose numbers for values, I solved for armor in every case since this is the a faktor which have to be the same for all cases.

Also I did not say damage is doubled with additional 916 power. I said all tool tip values are double with additional 916 power. Go ingame and check it. There is no logic behind a skill coefficient if ingame tool tips are rational reproduceable with the same rules for every skill.

Lost in translation?

Brew Pinch.5731:

Both professions are capable of wearing berserker’s gear and for comparisons sake discussing crit values is irrelevant.

Sure, a Guardian is capable of putting 25 point into Virtues and 25 points into Radiance to mimic my Precision and Critical Damage numbers—but do they?

If you want to talk about base stats, that’s fine. But I think it’s a more important and more useful conversation when you take into consideration how Engineers and Guardians are actually built and how they use the Flamethrower and Staff to their respective strengths. That’s all.

Brew Pinch.5731:

True, spending all trait points to achieve maximum damage when not dodging (clearly a PvE only trait) will equalise the damage potential between Flame Jet and Wave of Wrath IF you ignore similar traits on Guardian: Fiery Wrath, Radiant Power, Elusive Power and Power of the Virtuous.
(Elusive Power allows more damage at low endurance, meaning the trait is significantly more powerful than Enduring damage, which requires max endurance)

You see, the difference between what you said and what I said is that to get all of those buffs, a Guardian would have to run a build that looks like 10/25/X/25/25, which is obviously impossible. All of the +Damage traits I listed actually fit into my build.

So while you may make the point that the Staff may theoretically dish out more base damage without traits, when you see that the general FT build adds another +40% after damage is calculated in the tool tip … that really does matter.

Brew Pinch.5731:

The reality is that, again, these traits are irrelevant when comparing base damage.
Both professions have them available and if required I would argue that the Guardian’s were better, that is distracting from my point however.

But they’re not irrelevant. You have to take Deadly Mixture into consideration when talking about FT damage numbers. Do we talk about Grenade Kit’s superior damage without Grenadier? Because the kit is actually quite awful without it. And obviously the Flamethrower is too when you don’t take its traits into consideration.

Brew Pinch.5731:

Incredible, I have maxed out my Mesmer for PvE and one Warlock bolt can hit for 10k+

That isn’t your auto attack.

Flame Blast does 10K+ damage every 4.5 seconds. We were talking about Flame Jet.

Phineas Poe.3018:

If you want to talk about base stats, that’s fine. But I think it’s a more important and more useful conversation when you take into consideration how Engineers and Guardians are actually built and how they use the Flamethrower and Staff to their respective strengths. That’s all.

Builds vary greatly depending on your end goal, some Guards will build full DPS just as I personally build my Engineer for defense.

It is naive to assume that all engineers build for pure DPS, just as it is to assume that all Guardians build for toughness.

Phineas Poe.3018:

So while you may make the point that the Staff may theoretically dish out more base damage without traits, when you see that the general FT build adds another +40% after damage is calculated in the tool tip … that really does matter.

30% (deadly mixture, target the maimed, enduring power)

For the sake of argument, a Guard is capable of traiting for +20-30% damage too, with the added benefit of being a boost to both active weapons, not just one.

However, I contend that traits are irrelevant to this comparison as they have their own cost/benefit relationship within themselves.

Phineas Poe.3018:

You have to take Deadly Mixture into consideration when talking about FT damage numbers. Do we talk about Grenade Kit’s superior damage without Grenadier? Because the kit is actually quite awful without it. And obviously the Flamethrower is too when you don’t take its traits into consideration.

Why must one profession burn traits for their kits to be on par with other professions untraited weapons?
You have pointed out another clear issue with the Engineer.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Brew Pinch.5731:

Incredible, I have maxed out my Mesmer for PvE and one Warlock bolt can hit for 10k+

That isn’t your auto attack.

Flame Blast does 10K+ damage every 4.5 seconds. We were talking about Flame Jet.

I was sarcastically pointing out that telling everyone what the skill’s maximum potential damage is proves irrelevant to the argument, obviously the same could be achieved with the other skill.

I would enjoy watching a video of you achieving this though!

I was always under the assumption that skill coefficient is just the damage listed in the tooltip when naked divided by 916; at least that was always correct when I did some number crushing.

Brew Pinch.5731:

It is naive to assume that all engineers build for pure DPS, just as it is to assume that all Guardians build for toughness.

Well my own Guardian wears Berserker armor with Scholar runes and runs either a Sword/Focus or Hammer, depending on group composition. If I am running the Hammer I go 15/15/0/30/10. If I am running the Sword I run 10/30/0/20/10.

Therefore: I’m hardly assuming all Guardians build for Toughness. What I said was: “Sure, a Guardian is capable of putting 25 point into Virtues and 25 points into Radiance to mimic my Precision and Critical Damage numbers—but do they?”

So … do they?

Brew Pinch.5731:

30% (deadly mixture, target the maimed, enduring power)

Remember that Flame Jet essentially has Fiery Wrath built into it, granting a 10% damage increase to burning targets.

It’s a total of 40%.

Brew Pinch.5731:

Why must one profession burn traits for their kits to be on par with other professions untraited weapons?
You have pointed out another clear issue with the Engineer.

Why must Guardians burn traits for their Light fields to be ground targetable and heal allies while Super Elixir has this automatically?

There are trade-offs between each class, but it all ultimately balances out. This becomes more explicit when you take builds as the sum of all their parts and not cherrypicking singular details.

Brew Pinch.5731:

I would enjoy watching a video of you achieving this though!

With all due respect, I’m not going to make video just to show you how much damage Flame Blast can do when you can easily put on Berserker/Scholar gear and see it for yourself.

I’ll be glad to take a screenshot the next time I’m running a dungeon though.

Forestnator.6298:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

You’re changing armor values for each measurement to fit your assumption. That is a big no-no in science. Armor values are constant across all measurements: the only thing that I changed was weapon attack strength.

Here’s an example where your formula doesn’t work as well: assume doubled power:

(1205 + 1832) / 2121 × 251 × 1832/916=

3037 / 2121 × 251 × 2 = 718

And everyone knows 718 is not double 251. So it is your formula that doesn’t give a realistic result.

You did not understand anything. I did not choose numbers for values, I solved for armor in every case since this is the a faktor which have to be the same for all cases.

Also I did not say damage is doubled with additional 916 power. I said all tool tip values are double with additional 916 power. Go ingame and check it. There is no logic behind a skill coefficient if ingame tool tips are rational reproduceable with the same rules for every skill.

That would require that the test target have adjusted their armor as I changed skills. This doesn’t happen: any target has the same armor, regardless of the weapon you are using. The armor was the same for all of the cases: 2600.

The formula you are proposing is quite convoluted. If the armor values used change arbitrarily with each skill, weapon strength, and power, then you’d have to come up with an equation that would change armor rating for tooltips. Then you’d have to explain why this isn’t an additional modifier that just attempts to fix the formula. Then you’d have to explain what the point of Anet doing this on tooltips would be

Anyway, I think you aren’t quite understanding where the tooltip comes from. The in-game tool-tip factors in everything (weapon strength, coefficient, power, enemy armor) when coming up with it’s tooltip. The reason why doubling power doubles tooltip damage is because power has a linear relationship. The same is true for weapon strength: double weapon strength and you’ll get double the damage.

I checked this a long time ago. I tested doubling power on golems in the mists as well, and doubling power doubles damage. Another source of confusion comes from the fact that the armor used in the tool tip isn’t the armor nearly any enemy in PVE: there isn’t any enemy that has 2600 armor, except maybe one or two (karka). The golems in the mists, in fact, have armor values of 1836, 1980, and 2127 respectively.

1:14 = The power of the flamethrower!

Unless someone posts a video of the flamethrower being effective in any sort of pvp/wvw environment, then I feel it needs a serious improvement.

If your talking about PvE and you want to max your damage then just go rifle/bomb kit.

Decklan.7540:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-tG34sEKcg

1:14 = The power of the flamethrower!

Unless someone posts a video of the flamethrower being effective in any sort of pvp/wvw environment, then I feel it needs a serious improvement.

If your talking about PvE and you want to max your damage then just go rifle/bomb kit.

problem with ft is you’d have to fully trait for it in order to do the average damage you’d do with any weapon from pretty much 1000+ range and half the attack time .

try comparing SD build vs FT both with zerker . SD= nearly garanteed 5k-7k damage per second . FT’s jet pretty much has several seconds to finish each burst .

PS:Flamethrower Meet retaliation LOL

Hey Phin,

Phineas Poe.3018:

Sure, a Guardian is capable of putting 25 point into Virtues and 25 points into Radiance to mimic my Precision and Critical Damage numbers—but do they?"

So … do they?

Some might, but they bring other benefits to even out any disparity there. We are getting off track again.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Remember that Flame Jet essentially has Fiery Wrath built into it, granting a 10% damage increase to burning targets.

It’s a total of 40%.

The internal 10% helps bring Flame Jet in line with Wave of Wrath after factoring aftercast of both autos.

Again we are focusing on one facet of this comparison.
Flame Jet deals similar damage to Wave of Wrath over time, but it does so at 2/3 the range, hitting 3/5 the targets.
These disadvantages should be balanced with increased damage, or removed (as would be my preference, especially considering the animation is already 600 range)

Phineas Poe.3018:

Brew Pinch.5731:

Why must one profession burn traits for their kits to be on par with other professions untraited weapons?
You have pointed out another clear issue with the Engineer.

Why must Guardians burn traits for their Light fields to be ground targetable and heal allies while Super Elixir has this automatically?

There are trade-offs between each class, but it all ultimately balances out. This becomes more explicit when you take builds as the sum of all their parts and not cherrypicking singular details.

If an Engineer is required to spend traits to equalize the gap between another profession untraited, then the Engineer is at a disadvantage.

Traits should, as you suggest, provide a cost/benefit relationship within themselves.
Trait selection should not be dictated by arbitrarily reducing the efficacy of kits.

Phineas Poe.3018:

With all due respect, I’m not going to make video just to show you how much damage Flame Blast can do

Fair enough, in the same vein I cannot be bothered grinding the gold/laurels to maximize my DPS for PvE when I only PvP, where berserker gear is terrible, especially as an Engineer given we deal relatively low end DPS and fight close range.

Looking forward to the pics though

DesertRose.2031:

I was always under the assumption that skill coefficient is just the damage listed in the tooltip when naked divided by 916; at least that was always correct when I did some number crushing.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2_Wiki:Skill_formatting#Skill_effects

*Level 80
*All trait points refunded
*No buffs that give stat bonuses
*No equipped armor or accessories
*For weapon skills only, equip a max-strength weapon with no upgrades

Not sure how to interpret that last one tho.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2_Wiki:Skill_formatting#Skill_effects

*Level 80
*All trait points refunded
*No buffs that give stat bonuses
*No equipped armor or accessories
*For weapon skills only, equip a max-strength weapon with no upgrades

Not sure how to interpret that last one tho.[/quote]
Weapons have the stat “weapon damage”; meaning before you copy the value in the tooltip equip an exotic weapon (maybe the wiki uses ascended weapons).

I don’t understand why you guys linger over the armor value of the target; if you compare the damage of two skills it doesn’t matter, if skill A deals more damage against a target with 2200 armor than skill B it will also deal more damage against a 2800 target.

Main problem doesn’t come from comparing it to another class’s weapon, but rather to the weapons of our own class. If you apply cost/benefit to our own utilities it becomes clear that the weapon is largely useless for its #1 skill, and the #2 and #4 skills are largely situational. The weapon is pretty much only taken for the knockback CC, instant cast blind, and toolbelt burn.

This is similar to most of our other kits – elixir gun’s 2 is usually ignored, as is Tool Kit 2. These kits simply don’t benefit by having tack-on skills, as opposed to kits like bomb and grenade kit, which have well thought-out kits. Both have obvious applications as well as inherently synergistic skills to help accomplish those goals. Frost grenade allows you to control enemy movement for more efficient kiting, glue bomb holds enemies in place for you to land hits, smoke bomb and blinding grenades take pressure off of you so you can continue your combo. On top of this, grenade and bomb kit are useful in a variety of stat allocations, some of these being healing power, condition damage, mixed damage, might-stacking, and zerker builds.

Compare this to the flamethrower, a kit which can’t really decide what it wants to be. At first glance it should focus around the autoattack, since it is a flamethrower. Mid-range AoE damage and burn spread seems to be its focus. The autoattack is surprisingly terrible at spreading burns and does low damage for the cast time and moderately low range. It’s often better to just never use the flame jet – if you’re looking for damage, you use Napalm Ball, and if you’re looking for burning, you use the toolbelt skill. It’s really a strange kit whose role isn’t clearly defined, and it suffers because of that. In beta, the flamethrower took on a strong control role, when 5 was a pull, which actually synergized decently with napalm wall. Flame jet was your go-to damage source while your enemy was fumbling around on the ground from your CC, which usually placed them at the perfect distance for some punishment.

Anyways, another reason flamethrower is pretty bad on its own since it has no way to force enemies to actually get in range of you. Rifle has a gap-close, Tool kit has magnet. Bomb kit has extreme power and utility and a stealth finisher to compensate for the lack of a counter to kiting. Flamethrower is only useful if you know the enemy is going to be on top of you, such as in SPvP point contesting, but then bomb kit is a better option in that scenario. I guess you could take both?

tl;dr flamethrower is pretty good but the autoattack, the thing that defines it is largely useless which is frustrating

Forestnator.6298:

According to my formula:

1) (751(min)/918(max)+916)/Armor *251 * 916/916 = 191 (191 according to your measurements) —> 2191 – 2410 Armor

2) (812(min)/992(max)+916)/Armor *251 * 916/916 = 207 —> 2095 – 2314 Armor

3) (873(min)/1067(max)+916)/Armor *251 * 916/916 =222 —> 2023 – 2242 Armor

4) (986(min)/1205(max)+916)/Armor *251 * 916/916 =251 —> 1905 – 2121Armor

So either your measurements are incorrect or the numbers or the formula.

What Blood Red Arachnid seems not to understand is – as the armor of course should stay the same – that this only proves that either the formula or the measurements are not correct?

What I don´t understand: isn´t this an argument against your formula?

Also weapon strength seems to have not more or even less weight in your formula than additional power which contradicts statements concerning ascended weapons/the short-time boost to kits.

Besides that I´m with Brew Pinch (and Phineas´ logic clearly has some flaws).

Brew Pinch.5731:

Why must one profession burn traits for their kits to be on par with other professions untraited weapons?
You have pointed out another clear issue with the Engineer.

Well why must one class burn traits for their clones to be on par with what other classes do without clones?
You have pointed out another clear issue with the Mesmer.

(as in: classes are different)

Aegael OTOH raises a very valid point.

Carighan.6758:

Brew Pinch.5731:

Why must one profession burn traits for their kits to be on par with other professions untraited weapons?
You have pointed out another clear issue with the Engineer.

Well why must one class burn traits for their clones to be on par with what other classes do without clones?
You have pointed out another clear issue with the Mesmer.

(as in: classes are different)

I can safely say you are misunderstanding the simplicity of this discussion.

We are talking specifically about the basic statistics of weapons. Traits, gear, utilities, etc are all irrelevant because we are comparing a basic, fundamental factor of a build.

To use your example, as someone who has spent many more hours playing Mesmer than Engineer, I can write with surety that Mesmer’s are not required to spend traits for their weapons to achieve stats balanced with another classes weapons at base.

At their base, Mesmer weapons are fantastic, being unique and balanced.
At it’s base, Engineers flamethrower is awkward and unbalanced.

I’m not suggesting adding huge amounts of damage here, simply pointing out the disparity between similar skills. If the range/targets of the kits remain the same it should be balanced by a slight damage increase.
Personally, I would prefer to see the range and possibly the targets to be brought up to par. This seems logical, as the animation already travels to 600, not just 425 range.

hydeaut.1758:

Forestnator.6298:

According to my formula:

1) (751(min)/918(max)+916)/Armor *251 * 916/916 = 191 (191 according to your measurements) —> 2191 – 2410 Armor

2) (812(min)/992(max)+916)/Armor *251 * 916/916 = 207 —> 2095 – 2314 Armor

3) (873(min)/1067(max)+916)/Armor *251 * 916/916 =222 —> 2023 – 2242 Armor

4) (986(min)/1205(max)+916)/Armor *251 * 916/916 =251 —> 1905 – 2121Armor

So either your measurements are incorrect or the numbers or the formula.

What Blood Red Arachnid seems not to understand is – as the armor of course should stay the same – that this only proves that either the formula or the measurements are not correct?

*What I don´t understand: isn´t this an argument against your formula? *

Also weapon strength seems to have not more or even less weight in your formula than additional power which contradicts statements concerning ascended weapons/the short-time boost to kits.

Besides that I´m with Brew Pinch (and Phineas´ logic clearly has some flaws).

Yes it is against my formula. I have to recheck everything soon. I just do not have enougth time atm. I am sure there is no skill coefficient.

This is part of the trouble most of us have been complaining about for a while now. The skills on kits being nowhere near what they should be, added to that the recent nerf back to 5% lower than what the damage ratios should be in PVE it’s just wrong. They don’t even do the base damage of the legendary weapons anymore.

They need fixing. Period. And having longer cooldowns is just wrong as well.

Brew Pinch.5731:

Again we are focusing on one facet of this comparison.
Flame Jet deals similar damage to Wave of Wrath over time, but it does so at 2/3 the range, hitting 3/5 the targets.
These disadvantages should be balanced with increased damage, or removed (as would be my preference, especially considering the animation is already 600 range)

Well, not exactly.

Wave of Wrath hits 5 targets every .7 seconds; Flamethrower hits 3 targets every 0.225 seconds (10 times over 2.25 seconds). When spreading across a zerg, that means you can hit up to 30 different targets every 2.25 seconds; in the same time span, Wave of Wrath will have only hit up to 20.

In fact, the Flamethrower is so effective at hitting multiple people that you can literally kill yourself with Retaliation. Not just because of the high hit rate, but because of its effectiveness sweeping across zergs. It’s hard not to hit at least one person with Retaliation.

The Flamethrower is just as good as getting tags (and bags) as the Guardian Staff is provided you can survive the encounter. This is just something I will swear up and down until the end of time being a player that regularly plays both classes.

If you want to know how to do so and build a right FT(/EG) build for zerging, I’d be glad to forward you in the right direction.

Brew Pinch.5731:

If an Engineer is required to spend traits to equalize the gap between another profession untraited, then the Engineer is at a disadvantage.

Traits should, as you suggest, provide a cost/benefit relationship within themselves.
Trait selection should not be dictated by arbitrarily reducing the efficacy of kits.

It’s just a requirement of the Flamethrower given it already has plenty advantages including a 12-second conical knockback, a 10-second long Fire field, and a PBAoE Blind that can be used while stunned. All of that is taken into consideration before Juggernaut’s additional 200 passive Toughness.

Given all the Flamethrower offers defensively, it makes sense that you have to sink the rest of your traits into bolstering its damage. If the Flamethrower already did whakittendoes while doing equal damage to the Bomb Kit as a baseline, it would be so effing overpowered.

Nonetheless, its damage is still more than satisfactory. I don’t have time today to run dungeons and would rather finish up SAB Trib Mode since I won’t be able to play online for several days after today, so a shot from Statue of Dwayna will just have to do. The photo is attached.

I kinda just skimmed through, so I may have missed something or another. However, have you considered the fact that the FT attacks at a much more rapid rate than the guardian staff? As a result, when using traits, food, or sigils that proc on crit with no ICD, you will get far more procs than a guardian. Additionally, even if they do have an ICD, you are much more likely to maintain perfect uptime/downtime ratios simply because more frequent attacks mean more chances to proc it while it’s off cooldown.

Furthermore, the only guardian trait capable of improving the staff is a 20% cooldown reduction, while engineers get many more. If you consider the FT less valuable than the staff without supporting traits, consider it with supporting traits. I know the argument has been thrown around that requiring traits to be as good is poor design, but I personally think it’s significantly better when given the appropriate traits. As a result, isn’kittenlogical that the weapon that ends up better should start out worse?

Phineas, how many of the 25 stacks might on you will be from a guard´s staff 4? And compare your screenshot with the one in the OP here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/PvE-Dungeon-Speedrun-Zerk-Build/first

@ Sylentir: there is a very good trait for improving a guardian´s staff, though staff is not mentioned in it (Permeating Wrath, ironically can give staff what flamethrower should be doing but can´t achieve = perma aoe-burn).

And which good on-crit procs don´t have an internal CD already?

If it´s used as an Aoe-skill (and not on single targets) staff 1 blows flamethrower 1 out of the water, even more when both are traited.

Perhaps ANet should drop the buggy channel and instead build it as a short windup single attack.

hydeaut.1758:

Phineas, how many of the 25 stacks might on you will be from a guard´s staff 4?

Quite often: none of them.

I’ve already said before that playing my own Guardian I usually drop the Staff for a Hammer when there’s a Flamethrower Engineer in the group. You can fit 3 Mighty Blows in one Napalm if you time it correctly, giving you 9 stacks of Might that last 20 seconds instead of 10 stacks of Might from Empower which only last 10 seconds.

hydeaut.1758:

And compare your screenshot with the one in the OP here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/PvE-Dungeon-Speedrun-Zerk-Build/first

Why? This thread isn’t about how the Flamethrower stacks up to other kits, and I would never say that the Flamethrower does as much damage as the Bomb Kit in the first place.