Guild Wars 2

It’s a well known fact that only certain Utility Skills provide Tool Belt abilities that use a target for Static Discharge to properly launch at your desired enemy. As for the other Tool Belt Skills it is impractical if not impossible to use with this trait. The cause being that without a specific few Tool Belt Skill that targets a foe you simply waste your Static Discharge by firing it directly in front of your character. This will cause, in most encounters the effect to simply fly into the ground or into the air.

I’m assuming this is not intended seeing as the designed intent is to fire a Static Shot at your target. Would it not be an easy adjustment to simply allow Static Discharge to launch at your currently targeted foe regardless of your Tool Belt Ability?

So to my point: I was wondering if there was any shared dread on this faulty mechanic or perhaps if there was any news or speculation on if/when this was going to be addressed?
A remedy would make this trait very intuitive and fun when functioning properly, and if this was the intended design for this trait I would legitimately like to know Why?

I am eagerly awaiting the new builds that will spring forward with the addition to this fix, Or any news pertaining to the subject would be grand.

-Thank you.

That’d be interesting but I don’t think it’s going to happen. If SD did shoot at the target regardless of the tool belt’s function there would be no defensive/offensive trade off. Like you could go with an HGH build and get great burst while giving yourself might and cleansing a condition. Would I love it? Hell yeah. But I don’t see that happening. I believe they intended it to work the way it does now.

I do see your perspective, However the trade off arguably, is that the Majority of Tool Belt abilities that don’t function properly with Static discharge currently have a “lengthy” animation time and as we know Static Discharge only fires after the skill animation is complete.

So the equivalent exchange here is that All the effective Static discharge skills (Rifle Turret, Utility Goggles ect.) are faster, stronger and on a shorter Cool down but provide no true survivability. Where as the Tool Belt skills that currently do not function with Static Discharge (Super Speed, Big Ol’ Bomb) would provide builds with a slower, less effective, and longer cool down Static discharge while providing more defensive abilities on activation.

Analyzing the possibilities of all the Utilities available and the result wouldn’t be overboard. Example: Sure you could run an Elixir Gun with your static discharge build, but the Tool Belt ability is a valuable stun breaker so you have to make a descision on weather to deal some sustain damage or save to break a potential stun. This example holds true to almost all of the currently “broken” or “non-functioning” Tool Belt Skills.

This why I believe making Static Discharge a fully functional trait would make it intuitive to players in addition to providing a unique play style across all builds. For example I have recently made another “odd ball” build with a very effective hybrid P/P Static Discharge while using the Flame Thrower’s Tool Belt Ability Incediary Ammo in conjunction with Rifle Turrets Surprise Shot and Utility Goggles Analyze to spread burning applications instantly and across multiple opponents. And having constructed this build the way I have, I do a mediocre ammount of power damage in conjunction with a mediocre amount of condition damage. The culmination of this is a build that is very difficult to “hard counter” in addition to a unique play style that is very challenging and very fun to play. Which in my opinion should be a primary focus in game design, but I digress!

Ultimately, I am totally in agreement that balance should always be a priority when reviewing or adjusting Skills/Traits. But this is one that just feels broken, and takes away from the Engineer Profession what would/should have been an innovative trait.

incendiary ammo has 10 second cooldown tho

For what it’s worth, for skills that don’t target you can still get SD to hit your target, you just need to aim it with your camera as it travels in whatever direction your camera is facing.

It is certainly more difficult to do (especially in a PvP setting) but I’ve had some good luck with it at least hitting off my BoB.

The skill is only 200 damage kitten . Fix the bug and let it function the way it’s suppose to. Power engis barely have any good builds as it is. They don’t need one of their best options being broken and unusable.

Ive gotten to the point that I can automatically position myself so that my Regen Mist discharge hits most of the time.
TBH, its more of a practice thing because I thought the same thing when I first started using my SD build.
’Course if they want it to home in on my target, Im not gonna complain a bit.