Guild Wars 2

I wanted to try out hammer+bombs and blast on dodge. But I found it seems to put a cd on the entire dodge bomb, which I can only hope is a bug.

Also if this trait is to ever see any use, the cd needs to be 5 seconds max on the blast.

I agree. I don’t really understand why Thermobaric Detoniation even has a cool down. It’s not like it can be spammed.

Yes, especially seeing as it is a grandmaster, it should have a bit more “Oomph”.

yeah the user experience is bad, no indicator if you are on cd or not either

As long as there’s a cd on that skill, I’ll never touch that trait. It’s just too unreliable.

Why is it thermobaric detonation and not evasive powder keg that gets flak? Thermobaric detonation shares the same CD as evasive powder keg, which pretty much means every bomb you drop on dodge is a guaranteed blast finisher.

They should remove the CD on both skills. It would elevate this trait from ‘no one takes this, its too unreliable’ to ‘oh wow 2 blast finishers at hand I can actually take this now if I don’t run condi or mortar kit’ grandmaster worthy

Besides, evasive powder keg is limited by endurance anyway. If an engineer decides to spam 2 dodge blast finishers in succession for might/healing/stealth he has no dodges left

SirPrizeBartSachs.4670:

Why is it thermobaric detonation and not evasive powder keg that gets flak? Thermobaric detonation shares the same CD as evasive powder keg, which pretty much means every bomb you drop on dodge is a guaranteed blast finisher.

They should remove the CD on both skills. It would elevate this trait from ‘no one takes this, its too unreliable’ to ‘oh wow 2 blast finishers at hand I can actually take this now if I don’t run condi or mortar kit’ grandmaster worthy

Besides, evasive powder keg is limited by endurance anyway. If an engineer decides to spam 2 dodge blast finishers in succession for might/healing/stealth he has no dodges left

I did not realize there was a cd on the dodge bomb itself as well. Probably since the june patch? I played SD before june and the adrenal implant nerf + this is huge.

Soon.5240:

I agree. I don’t really understand why Thermobaric Detoniation even has a cool down. It’s not like it can be spammed.

Sigil of Energy + Elixir R + Vigor/Implant= An easy 6-7 dodges with little investment. With the current state of Scrapper if you were to throw Function Gyro into the mix you have an impossibly tough Stomper/Resser surviving through crazy blocks + dodges with free blasts on every use? This particular setup would also mean that you can INSTANTLY revive a player through use of Function Gyro + Toss Elixir R every 40s if done right. It isn’t hard to see why allowing this to become a spammable trait is being avoided entirely by Dev discussion. If anything were to happen, Thermo needs to be folded INTO Evasive Powder Keg and replaced with something that honestly has a chance to compete with Shrapnel and Siege Rounds.

Mnemesis.8257:

Soon.5240:

I agree. I don’t really understand why Thermobaric Detoniation even has a cool down. It’s not like it can be spammed.

Sigil of Energy + Elixir R + Vigor/Implant= An easy 6-7 dodges with little investment.

Nope, they nerfed adrenal implant in the june patch, thats 5 dodges max.

HEDRO.2345:

Mnemesis.8257:

Soon.5240:

I agree. I don’t really understand why Thermobaric Detoniation even has a cool down. It’s not like it can be spammed.

Sigil of Energy + Elixir R + Vigor/Implant= An easy 6-7 dodges with little investment.

Nope, they nerfed adrenal implant in the june patch, thats 5 dodges max.

The point was Vigor or AI provide additional dodge potential to the extent that free blasts WITHOUT constraint prove to be a massive overpowering potential. Whether or not they stack effect is besides the point. It cannot be argued that 5-6 consecutive dodges producing combo blasts is healthy in any way, since you HAVE to account for endurance regen during that time frame, which is where the additional dodge of 6 is coming into play (still substantial even without it). The build I suggested implied that AI would prove to be counter-productive to the overbearing Res/Stomp presence we would likely see as a result of such a change. Nice job cherry picking though.

I’ve said it before I’ll say it again:

Dodge activated traits should not have cooldowns. The gate is your endurance. If you want to use up your endurance to activate a trait instead of avoiding damage you should have that choice.

Adamantium.3682:

I’ve said it before I’ll say it again:

Dodge activated traits should not have cooldowns. The gate is your endurance. If you want to use up your endurance to activate a trait instead of avoiding damage you should have that choice.

That holds true if there was a limited impact effect involved. No other trait in the game has the potential to effect OUR presence (or any other) on the field so completely. This is not a debatable context. Having no CD on this trait breaks the game. EPG should NOT have a CD since it does not fit into the scenario I just explained. Thermo absolutely needs a CD to be kept in check, although 10s is TOO heavy of a limitation. As suggested, lowering this to 5s is more than fair.

Mnemesis.8257:

Adamantium.3682:

I’ve said it before I’ll say it again:

Dodge activated traits should not have cooldowns. The gate is your endurance. If you want to use up your endurance to activate a trait instead of avoiding damage you should have that choice.

That holds true if there was a limited impact effect involved. No other trait in the game has the potential to effect OUR presence (or any other) on the field so completely. This is not a debatable context. Having no CD on this trait breaks the game. EPG should NOT have a CD since it does not fit into the scenario I just explained. Thermo absolutely needs a CD to be kept in check, although 10s is TOO heavy of a limitation. As suggested, lowering this to 5s is more than fair.

I don’t get how a 10s CD is too long, 5s CD is fair, but no CD breaks the game.

A blast finisher on a dodge is not breaking anything. I think you’re going a little overboard with the effect this trait will have.

Following you logical process it should make perfect sense. Assuming someone is spending their dodges solely for the purpose of causing a combo blast, something we already possess in spades, that would mean someone is ONLY capable of accomplishing this task every ~7s at best under vanilla circumstances; making 5s very generous. No CD means that we stack ourselves to the gills with evades/blocks/invulns for a monstrosity that would still provide team offensive/defensive support that is NOT intended to exist with that type of survivability. Minstrel is proof of this concept. A reasonable (this being the key word) cooldown is what would keep this from even being a problem to begin with.

Could you explain specifically how this breaks the game? I don’t see it at all and I would like to see from your side what makes you so sure of how bad this would be. It’s just a blast finisher (which comes at a cost), those are everywhere anyways.

Maybe this provides a better picture. As of right now, this would not receive a second glance or even a consideration to be used. However, with the restriction removed from Thermo we face a different situation. Something along these lines then becomes an unstoppable Juggernaut abusing every combo field available. Party Heals? Just hop around in Water for a bit. Might stack for party? Plenty of Fire available. Perma Weakness? Hell, poison is pretty easy to come by.

Now, this is a game that is not intended to be balanced around 1v1’s, which is where this would obviously suffer; albeit an incredibly annoying and hard to kill build being equipped with 6 consecutive dodges (now blasts as well), Hammer evades ever 10s, stealth, invuln, near-perma stab and a whopping 25% block upkeep time. Throw this into a team oriented environment and you have something that can coordinate huge heal spikes, might stacks, condition bombs etc. Consider with the situation that you are also the safe stomper through Function Gyro and Elixir S, instant (literally instant) resser with Function Gyro + Throw Elixir R (now on 40s cd courtesy of evades). Conditions aren’t an issue for now since teams are run with PLENTY of condie removal, and you just have to throw out some extra stuns/dazes for a coordinated spike or body cleave.

Clearly this is not an issue for PvE, but in WvW and PvP this would be abused above and beyond anything I can imagine. The truth of the matter is they refuse to separate balancing skills/traits for individual content, which is where the source of this issue arises. Thermo can not be allowed to function freely, because it has such potential to be abused in specific content. However, leaving it in it’s current state makes it virtually worthless to invest in. There are only 2 options for this particular scenario: It performs too well or it behaves poorly-mediocre at best.

Thanks for writing that out and explaining your point of view. My conclusion is going to have to be to agree to disagree. Dodging to proc blast finishers is not getting you any more blast finishers than an Engi would be able to use otherwise, and in fact maybe even less since fields only last so long and dodges are using the limited time you have to use blast finishers. My interpretation of your point is that using Thermobarric Detonation with no cooldown leads to some unstoppable force of blast finishers everywhere which I just don’t think is true.

The rest of your post pretty much defines a bunker build to me, I don’t see much of an issue with it. Again, thanks for writing it out. Let’s just agree to disagree on this one I guess.

I suggest allowing it to blast up to 5 fields of different types at once, but keep the cool down

Also, I think in beta weekend 3 it showed up as increasing the damage by 25%, is that still there?

It’s fine to disagree on points, not everyone is going to agree with this concept. The truth of the matter is that this was a poorly conceptualized trait that was obviously put on too tight of a leash for reasons unknown to us. In my eyes the potential of the mechanics this provides is too much to be without CD, as it is just poor taste for a single trait to mimic an active play style and folding it into another mechanic that provides defensive qualities through activation.

Now, let’s move on to the brainstorming session of the discussion where we can provide alternatives that could prove even more effective than what we currently have. As it stands the entire Explosives line is lackluster and needs something that is not centered completely around Bombs/Nades and power. My suggestion is this:

1. Drop the current effect of Thermo- it does not promote healthy game play without CD and is useless WITH a CD
2. Replace it with a new effect that is centered AROUND combo blasting.
3. Thermo now provides an additional effect/boon based upon the field used during a combo blast.

We are now taking Explosives away from a completely offensive line and providing it with a level of utility that it has not possessed before, while gating it with the cds of the skills activating it instead.

Just would like to say that NOTHING has ever used this trait… 11 months later, any chance of having it looked at so maaayyyybbeee we could have an option in explosives?

Or how about just give the quickness on cc trait back otherwise.

Mnemesis.8257:

Soon.5240:

I agree. I don’t really understand why Thermobaric Detoniation even has a cool down. It’s not like it can be spammed.

Sigil of Energy + Elixir R + Vigor/Implant= An easy 6-7 dodges with little investment. With the current state of Scrapper if you were to throw Function Gyro into the mix you have an impossibly tough Stomper/Resser surviving through crazy blocks + dodges with free blasts on every use? This particular setup would also mean that you can INSTANTLY revive a player through use of Function Gyro + Toss Elixir R every 40s if done right. It isn’t hard to see why allowing this to become a spammable trait is being avoided entirely by Dev discussion. If anything were to happen, Thermo needs to be folded INTO Evasive Powder Keg and replaced with something that honestly has a chance to compete with Shrapnel and Siege Rounds.

honestly im not sure you fully understand the actually problems that come with running the build your describing in a legit fight/match neither are you looking at this compared to another class in terms of viability overall, take a long hard think about this and get back to me.

on another note, give it a 2 second cd, if your spamming dodges good for you otherwise atleast now we could effectivly plan kitten around this trait alot easier.

There’s two layers of cd:
º Evasive Poweder Keg has a 10s cd
º Thermobaric Detonation also has a 10s cd

As said quite alot above, yes it does have a cooldown, which is not a bug.
Indeed this bug is quite useless. It reallt needs some love, it could also make the explosives line in total a bit more useful.
Also they could buff soothing detonation’s healing power scaling. Would be amazing synergy if they fixed TD