Guild Wars 2

with the current state of the game i thnk flamethrower would actually serve a role if it had its old 50% movement speed drop but gain perma stability allowing engineers to counter cc spamming classes in wvw as it stands flamethrower is just ridiculously lackluster having a 3 target cap and half rifle dps it sorta needs its own build wich is not really all that efective as it requires traiting in firearms explosives and alchemy for damage pretty much

They cant do that . It was to broken with the downed/stomp mechanic. U could stabilty stomp evryone all the time. No class should have Perma stabilty. Also the only counter to a good bunker engi is locking him down and condition him to death. Give them stabilty on Ft and we have the next OP class.

Juggernaut IMHO is kind of lame. I dropped it a long time ago because I run with a group that is giving me might stacks and those 20 trait points are better spent elsewhere, not to mention being freed up to use other runes.

But engineers do need more stability in general so maybe juggernaut could grant stability for 5 seconds when switching to flamethrower?

I would like it to apply more burn, and NAPALM SHOULD NOT BE RECTANGULAR… SHOULD BE ROUND. But that just day dreaming

Here’s the deal: flamethrowers overall performance is so low (outside of multikit build) that giving it stability would only balance it out. Especially if you wanted to play with a true flamethrower :S

But Engies already have perma-stability. It’s called Mortar! Har har, I’m so funny.

On a more semi-serious note, what about giving Juggernaut Unshakable ? While it is sort of perma-stability, enough CC can wear it down, and since foes with unshakable don’t start with defiant stacks (they gain them after the first CC usually), you can’t just switch into your flamethrower to get an easy stomp.

It also makes balancing pretty easy, as you can just vary the number of defiant stacks that get applied each time. Maybe start with 2 or 3 and see how it affects balance.

scimi.3487:

But Engies already have perma-stability. It’s called Mortar! Har har, I’m so funny.

On a more semi-serious note, what about giving Juggernaut Unshakable ? While it is sort of perma-stability, enough CC can wear it down, and since foes with unshakable don’t start with defiant stacks (they gain them after the first CC usually), you can’t just switch into your flamethrower to get an easy stomp.

It also makes balancing pretty easy, as you can just vary the number of defiant stacks that get applied each time. Maybe start with 2 or 3 and see how it affects balance.

I like this idea.

I would rather see Flamethrower become a great, top tier melee damage kit. That sounds more “flamethrower” to me, but this is a good option as well. Really the kit just needs help somehow.

Don’t get me wrong, I agree that the squirt gun damage output is the core issue with the flamethrower that keeps people from using it really at all. That said, some measure of stability would give the kit a way to stand out among the other options while not exacerbating the 3-kit tendency-dependency of the class. If you go juggernaut flamethrower, you’re doing it to stay in it, not swap around kits every 5 seconds.

Once you set that precendence (however you go about it), you can look at ways to bump up the damage, and in that sense, it would need to be a buff to the #1 skill. Otherwise you’re back to encouraging utility use and kit swapping without juggernaut.

Honestly, I only see two ways to get stability attached to this kit, that I feel would bot be reasonably balanced, and that Anet might actually go for.

1. Change the kit refinement option for the FT to give “5s of stability” when swapping to this kit, rather then “fire shield”

2. Change “Incendiary Ammo” to “Juggernaut” and have it grant 5s of stability on the same 60s recast.

Could always do 30% chance on a crit to gain 5s of stability with 10-20s cool down. Not OP and never know when you will gain that stability.

coglin.1867:

Honestly, I only see two ways to get stability attached to this kit, that I feel would bot be reasonably balanced, and that Anet might actually go for.

1. Change the kit refinement option for the FT to give “5s of stability” when swapping to this kit, rather then “fire shield”

2. Change “Incendiary Ammo” to “Juggernaut” and have it grant 5s of stability on the same 60s recast.

Idk the problem about that is that it doesn’t encourage someone to stay in flamethrower, just further turns it into a utility kit

They should redesign the FT but the old juggernaut is not the answer.

they just should crank up the DPS on it or make the flame jet a constant attack…and do something usefull with the toolbelt ability of it.. cause really now… 3 shots with burn and such a long cooldown time? Come on..

Penguin, no I don’t want to stay in flamethrower. I need to use all my kits because the dps from flamethrower is mediocre. I hate Juggernaut for that so I stopped using it.

I wish Juggernaut did something different. I can understand the problem with it in the past. So maybe put the stability it grants on a cooldown.

Exactly there currently is no reason to stay in it. It sucks to stay in it for offensive and defensive purposes. But lets say the old juggernaut was brought back. Now even though it still sucks offensively, the defensive bonuses given by juggernaut make it worth staying in.

And I don’t think its juggernauts fault for the ft having horrible dps. The cast time is equal to about 3 hip shots and when you add the power and condition damage from it, it equals about 3 hip shots too. However two things bring it down. First is that the power damage is only equal to 2/3 of hip shot, so if you go zerker or power based its only 2/3 as effective compared to just shooting rifle. And using it with condition stat is even worse.
Secondly the damage is too focused on the back. Remember that flame jets power damage is only effective as two hip shots but it has the cast time of three so that damage coming out is very slow and you have to hope that last tick hits or youve lost a lot of dps.

From my experience the Flamethrower lacks survivability. I understand the majority of players wish for a powerhouse kit and I do aswell. But I don’t think that was the intent with any Kit. As far as I’m concerned they are primarily used for utility. (Hence the fact they are Utility Skills) Granted you can get nice power damage from Bombs and good Hybrid damage from Grenades they are still not a substitute for your Weapon Skills.

That being said, I’d like to see some of Flamethrowers Skills have either it’s sources of damage improve or it’s versatility/survivability improved. Currently it provides very little ways to protect its self and even less if you attempt to make a Flamethrower Focused build. The Flamethrowers problem lies within in the fact that the Flamethrower is counter intuitive Kit. Choosing a power based build will cause you to have a rather nicely scaled Flame Blast but causes you to lose alot of DPS by not making full use of the Burning Condition. Alternatively going hard condition will cause your DPS to drop as aside from short spikes of burning mostly from the Tool Belt or Proccing effects through Flame Jet it doesn’t truly contribute or mesh well with the other Flamethrower skills which the 3 of the 5 weapon skills do practically no direct damage/condition application. All the while providing no true/reliable defensive options (no condition removal/damage midigation) Making attrition DPS not possible. This is of course just from my experiences and are stricktly my opinions.

Keep in mind I don’t mean to imply the Flamethrower needs ALL of these concepts. But merely if everything else remained untouched then a little change would put it in a positive direction.

Flame Jet- I don’t mind the damage of the initial jet but there is no reward for the back end of the attack. If this is how it is to remain then yes, the damage should be improved otherwise the reward for “maintaining a stream” should be greatly increased to benefit any kind of build. Auto attacks across the board should not be over simplified in my opinion so I would prefer the ladder personally.

Flame Blast-This skill is very fun to use and scales nicely with Power.

Air Blast- Very good as is.

Napalm- Believe it or not I feel this is one of the underlying problems with the Flamethrowers weakness. Granted it can be used to stack might, and can be used in condition builds to combo through it offers no real pressure to opponents and has a staggering cool down for its current function. Simply put, The flamethrower lacks damage and this Skill just isn’t contributing. Perhaps if it Blinded foes who passed through it, or if it dealt considerable Power damage in addition to its Burning to justify its strange wall shape. However I personally, would like to see a Unique Debuff Napalm, that would be afflicted onto foes who step through it and could periodically inflict Burning onto the foe. Similar to Warriors off hand sword skill Impale that periodically applies Torment. This would also be a realistic effect when considering the purpose/function of actual Napalm.

Smoke Vent- A pretty solid skill but yet again contributes nothing to the Flamethrower in terms of damage. Having a lengthy 20 second cool Down and a mild effect when considering Flamethrowers only survivability comes from a invaluable Knock Back and a single melee rang Blind. Not that I don’t love this skill but I’d like to see it either lean more towards a defensive option or provide some damage. This could be in the form of a simple cool down decrease or perhaps allowing smoke vent to create a quick 1 second area around you that destroys incoming projectiles or perhaps a much discussed smoke Field. Alternatively allowing it to Break Stuns would be a great way to improve Flamethrowers survivability. This particular change unfortunately would of course come with a cool down increase.

In conclusion, I would just like to see more kits that have better potential for Power and/or Condition builds. They should be the utility that we need to survive while also providing additional forms of damage/effects to compliment our weapons/builds.

Wolf.5816:

Napalm- Believe it or not I feel this is one of the underlying problems with the Flamethrowers weakness. Granted it can be used to stack might, and can be used in condition builds to combo through it offers no real pressure to opponents and has a staggering cool down for its current function. Simply put, The flamethrower lacks damage and this Skill just isn’t contributing. Perhaps if it Blinded foes who passed through it, or if it dealt considerable Power damage in addition to its Burning to justify its strange wall shape. However I personally, would like to see a Unique Debuff Napalm, that would be afflicted onto foes who step through it and could periodically inflict Burning onto the foe. Similar to Warriors off hand sword skill Impale that periodically applies Torment. This would also be a realistic effect when considering the purpose/function of actual Napalm.

grawl fractal end boss is the skill you want, its already in the game

Ha ha thanks! if you can’t tell I haven’t left the mists since they released this game. perhaps this will make it more reasonable to implement

ANet seems to have no problems granting stunbreaker+long stability to other classes.