Guild Wars 2

EDIT:

Im not the OP, OP deleted his post… topic needs closing now really… I guess the OP actually bothered testing

a Greatswords standard auto-attack does the same amount of damage and costs nothing.

Mine at level 78 hits for about 400 per little bomb, with an 800 damage weapon and full berserker. You’ll understand if i’m skeptical that another 200 from a level 80 exotic weapon will make those little things do 20x their damage.

post screenshots. if you post WvW screenshots post screenshots where your team is not riding +50% damage and crit damage from world buffs and group buffs.

in fact, ONLY post sPvP screenshots. post an sPvP screenshot of a cluster bomb doing this level of damage.

In WvW with my team having all 3 orbs it crits for around 3k on someone with low toughness and 1.8k on someone with high toughness. Armor is exotic but weapons and jewelry is rare.

Also, it costs 3 initiative, rather than 2.

the very most i have ever seen mine crit for is 4.5k, and im full exotic

It hits for 8k AOE against targets in no armor, NERF

I guess today is one of those days where we just cry about every skill the thief has with completely made-up numbers. Why don’t you cry about Flanking Strike next? I head it does like 50k damage and lets the thief evade for 30 seconds!

Only time I break 6k with a cluster bomb crit is if I’m shooting an elementalist with manure for armor or some derper wearing lv50 armor.

Gear? Berserker’s, half rare half exotic. 2-3 orbs. 20 pwr 30 prc spec.

Mostly 2-3k per player. So i can easily hit 10k+ if i hit a group of enemies, which happens a lot in WvW. When i crit, it’s like 4-5k per player, which can easily add up to 15k+ total.

Yes, 2k per target sounds about right, with a max of 5 targets. Which is actually pretty low damage compared to a lot of other AoEs. But that’s balanced by the bleeding added on, so I’d say it’s working as intended.

ask elementalists how much damage they do with their meteor stuff…or greatsword wielder and i never seen a 8k crit on a single target from cluster bomb, even with full pow/prec/crit damage exotics and full stacks of bloodlust or accuracy sigils.

he still hasn’t posted screenshots….

i hit 8k on random people in wvw with cluster bomb sometimes.. but not that often… so it must be the random level 2 that im hitting 8k on I would guess..

Greatsword autoattack hits for less damage than most 1h warrior weapons….

But good try….

I find it hilarious that people call abilities in WvW unbalanced when you’re probably hitting low-lvl glass cannon builds….. NO REAL TESTING can be done in WvW, too many factors are involved.

As an ele with 2,300 armor I usually get hit for 5k by Cluster Bomb. In comparison, my meteors crit for 2k.

LOL, was the OP who deleted his moronic post serious? How can anybody complain about Cluster Bomb being too “good”?! If anything Cluster Bomb needs to be buffed. It takes 3 seconds to travel, deals below averege damage and puts 1 medicore bleed on the target. Detonation is a bit more decent with bleeds but it requires timing. Also it is not spam-able because it takes time to travel and you can’t recast it because it is turned into detonate function. Overal ability feels very weak.

Nice try… I’m in full exotic power/crit/crit damage gear and my cluster blombs only crit for 2k per target. I might be able to nudge that up a bit with a slightly better bow, but certainly not over 3k.

You people hitting for 2k w/ clusterbomb with full exotics must either have awful specs or you stack kitten stats, just saying.

6-9k sounds about accurate on clothies.

as elementalist there’s nothing more annoying than getting hit for more than half of hp with single hit
it hits for 6k+ and 2k autoattacks

Flamu.2319:

You people hitting for 2k w/ clusterbomb with full exotics must either have awful specs or you stack kitten stats, just saying.

6-9k sounds about accurate on clothies.

okay gimme a spec and I’ll go get some screenshots of it definitely not doing 9k per hit against anything other than a lowbie in WvW.

Why would I need to do that, I play a thief myself and I know what I hit for.

Plenty of thief vids where I use clusterbombs, http://www.youtube.com/user/cheesec4t

A specific example of a clusterbomb not hitting ‘2k’ would be this vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLktTZLhyI4

Man if you specifically look at, for example, 0:35 you can see me target a lvl 80 elementalist just before hitting him for a 7.6k crit.

As I said, either you stack wrong stats or your spec is awful. Most likely both.

8k with all targets? yeah its an AOE.

Okay, you got me. When you’re fully buffed and hit someone who is downed state without any buffs you can do 7k. Most of your other cluster bomb crits did about 2k, but we’ll just ignore those. And I mean, it’s not like every other ability would get the same boost when you’re buffed against a prone target…

bwillb.2165:

Okay, you got me. When you’re fully buffed and hit someone who is downed state without any buffs you can do 7k. Most of your other cluster bomb crits did about 2k, but we’ll just ignore those. And I mean, it’s not like every other ability would get the same boost when you’re buffed against a prone target…

Wait.. so when people are downed your cluster bomb hits them for 7k, but when they are not it hits for 2k… ?

Wait.. so when people are downed your cluster bomb hits them for 7k, but when they are not it hits for 2k… ?This does not make any sense, maybe you were being hit by artillery.

How cute, you conveniently ignored all the damage done on the others. Fully buffed? Only buff I see on myself as I shoot that shot is swiftness, rofl. Also I hit people harder when they’re downed? wat?

Oh well didn’t expect you to admit fault anyways. kitten clusterbomb so weak, please buff thieves, gief 1200 range and sniper rifles.

I can do 5k and that goes up to 7k when they go down to <50% hp. I could prob hit 8k if i had max exotics. Trinkets are green. Sigil of bloodlust. Another factor is that there could be area vulnerability.

Flamu.2319:

How cute, you conveniently ignored all the damage done on the others. Fully buffed? Only buff I see on myself as I shoot that shot is swiftness, rofl. Also I hit people harder when they’re downed? wat?

Oh well didn’t expect you to admit fault anyways. kitten clusterbomb so weak, please buff thieves, gief 1200 range and sniper rifles.

Really? The only buff you see is swiftness? You don’t see the banner, the food, the potion, and the orb bonus? And we don’t really have any info about the target other than that they were level 80… could be in level 1 gear for all we know. Get some data from a controlled environment such as tPvP and we’ll talk about whether it’s OP or not. You can’t tell kitten from WvW.

What spec u usin

Oh so a… karmabanner.. a minor orb and some food buffs made clusterbombs hit for 7k+ instead of 2k? Well, that’s cleared up then, carry on.

Flamu.2319:

Oh so a… karmabanner.. a minor orb and some food buffs made clusterbombs hit for 7k+ instead of 2k? Well, that’s cleared up then, carry on.

Hey, get the same damage in tPvP and I’ll eat my hat for you. And my hat doesn’t taste very good, I pulled it out of a slimy undead maggot.

bwillb.2165:

Most of your other cluster bomb crits did about 2k, but we’ll just ignore those.

You are looking at detonated clusters, that’s 3 clusters per shot, which crit around 2k each. Meaning the total damage for a crit shot would have been 6k.

6-7k is what you’d expect in a full glass cannon build for the main bomb, which you should leave to explode on landing against any large group of people due to the target cap. I run a balanced build with some health and armour, and i normally crit 5k with it. So to back up Flamu, here’s me with no buffs or orbs critting 5k on multiple targets in a balanced build:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI7FmgV4bCg&t=11m12s

Full Berserker’s with an all-in damage spec should crit for 5.5-6k or so against soft targets in full exotics. Factor in some might stacks and orb bonuses and 7k is realistic against softer targets.

Getting above that requires big stacks of might and orb bonuses; weak targets in underleveled greens/golds, or some combination thereof.

Appreciate the backup but this bwillb guy is already so set in his point of view he wont accept any other arguments so I kinda wrote him off as a kitten and carried on.

In fact if you read his posts you’ll find that his initial argument was that he was in full exotics and only did 2k, now he’s talking about tPvP all of a sudden. It’s a classic case of backpedaling desperately, trying to salvage some form of superiority in the discussion even when clearly in the wrong.

Flamu.2319:

Appreciate the backup but this bwillb guy is already so set in his point of view he wont accept any other arguments so I kinda wrote him off as a kitten and carried on.

In fact if you read his posts you’ll find that his initial argument was that he was in full exotics and only did 2k, now he’s talking about tPvP all of a sudden. It’s a classic case of backpedaling desperately, trying to salvage some form of superiority in the discussion even when clearly in the wrong.

Yeah, full exotics without crazy WvW buffs does about the same damage as in tPvP with exotic pvp gear. IMAGINE THAT? Forgive me if I don’t give easily, every kittening day there’s a new kittened thread kittening about a different thief ability with severely inflated numbers. Don’t even kittening bother posting WvW “proof”, test in a controlled environment or gtfo.

I ran into a Thief using Cluster Bomb a few days ago who was doing massive amounts of damage. Five hits for just over 15k damage from Cluster Bomb. Pretty sure I was running a glass cannon build at the time, but I was pretty surprised to see that much damage from Cluster Bombs in my death window. I was dead in about 3 seconds.

I wish I could remember hombre’s name, because he was rocking short bow hard.

… crazy WvW buffs? Please enlighten us unworthy readers what wvw buffs there are that give your abilities an additional +250% damage? You do realize that even owning 3 orbs of power only gives your realm 150 stat points and foods cap out at 100 of an individual stat?

bwillb.2165:

Yeah, full exotics without crazy WvW buffs does about the same damage as in tPvP with exotic pvp gear. IMAGINE THAT?

That’s utterly false by the way, you can min/max far better in wvw, attaining much higher crit damage which translates to much higher damage in general for crit heavy classes (read; thief).

Seriously tho, what is it with some posters and the inability of admitting they were wrong. Don’t get me wrong, this is rather entertaining but doesn’t being so fervently in denial get kind of frustrating at some point? Or are you actually convinced you still have a sliver of a point hidden somewhere behind your desperate denials?

Okay guys, I’ve got 800 games on my thief at the moment, 550 of which are in tPvP. I didn’t hear the original statement or numbers. From what I can tell, people think Cluster Bomb is balanced, because of the travel time, and detonation. I’ve been using this skill for about 2 weeks now. It’s quite possibly the most sustained damage AoE in the game. It hits targets for 3-5k (depending on target), it IS spammable, and the initiative cost is incredibly low for it’s potential damage output.

The reason Cluster bomb is so good, is because if you use it in MELEE range, the cast time is null. It’s a spammable 360 AoE high damage, bleed stacking attack. Not only that, it is ALSO a blast finisher. Bust that baby out when your buddy is putting down a Combo Field and you do an AWESOME AoE buff, or debuff.

If you are using this skill from range, then you are not using it properly. I propose a few changes to the skill, that I believe would balance it. It needs a nerf, but nothing major. But the skill, as it stands is just way to strong.
1. Make the AoE smaller
2. Lower the Large Explosion damage
3. Remove the initiative cost for the small explosion, and make the initial cost of Cluster Bomb 4 initiative.

It only needs one of those changes to be a balanced skill.
As far as numbers go, off the top of my head based off Armor type:
Cloth: 4k+ . I’m not going to give a high side, because it varies to much. I will say that I have personally hit for 7k before. That is incredibly rare, and even 6k most likely won’t happen in a full tourny set.
Leather: 3k-5k . Rarely will you get higher than that.
Plate: 1.5k-3k. This isn’t that bad. But the fact that it’s spammable AoE really starts to make that high armor matter less…

Those are what I normally see. I almost exclusively play Thief in tPvP, so this is purely off that experience. As far as WvW is concerned, I can only imagine that bigger groups of people means more big numbers.

And to be clear: Thieves should have at least 50% crit chance.

I have actually once critted 10k with my cluster bomb on a down non-lvl80 player in wvw. Don’t know what all the fuss is about…

ShneakySquirrel nailed it. that is what is consistent with reality. You can get numbers like that (ranging between 1.5k and 6k, depending on opponent’s defense and your +crit damage).

also a very good summary of what is actually powerful about the ability. it is functionally a spammable PBAoE, which is pretty fierce and probably not really the design intent.

Exactly metaphorm. Another potential fix to that skill, would be a minimum flight time for the cluster bomb, ie: it has a minimum distance in which it can be cast, and can’t be cast at your feet, or within 200 range of yourself. I’m not sure how that would turn out, because of serious mechanics changes (no other skill is subject to that kind of limitation).

My cluster bombs crit between 5-7k depending on the circumstances i’m full exotics berserker

In PvE Cluster Bomb hits for 800-1.5k max… I don’t even hit 8k on rabbits… If anything it needs a buff, by the time my bomb lands the target is 30m away.

Nerf clusterbomb? Then I also want daggers to aoe attack like basicly any other weapon. And I want a higher HP pool than the lowest. And I actually want a skillset worth using under water. Not to mention weapon skills worth using besides 1 or 2 in a set.

Also clusterbomb is basikittenhe only thing left for theives to use in sieges.

I also want Engies nades nerfed as they are better in every way to cluster bomb doing more damage at range and in melee, and stacking amazingly with quickness

the fact of the matter is this game is not balanced for WvW… WvW is just some random zergy stuff going on that you can muck about with for a bit of a laugh, all that matters to the proper pvpers and ANet is the tPvP… I mean the seige weapons are hilarious, 2 shotting huge groups of people with the cannons and decimating groups with the arrow carts etc…

I mean to be a commander in the WvW you dont have to have any experience, maturity or merit, all you have to do is make a zerg guild and have a joining fee/tax.

ANet wants this game to be an Esport, Esport will not ever rise from WvW so balance will not be done around it.

Well honestly, in WvW clusterbomb does crit for the 3000-7000 (8000-9000 happens occasionally against targets under 50%) range pretty often if you have a glass cannon spec and high crit damage (100-110% or so). Cluster bomb is nearly the equivalent of a 25-50% Heartseeker off the top of my head, so I don’t see how people can argue that it isn’t a high damage skill regardless of what its doing in tPVP or WVW. Being able to spam it at your feet and the fact that is a Blast finisher are what make it so incredibly good. Aoe pullin + timewarp + clusterbomb spam

Pretty much what Shneaky said though: it needs some sort of change to bring it more in line with just being a good skill, instead of a ridiculous one.

It does 5k crits in Spvp regularly, and the SB auto attack hits for 1400-1500 on softies. That is thrice what my ranger crits with his SB.

8k? That’s nothing. I once saw a thief in sPvP hit me for 17k (critical) with a non-split Cluster Bomb, and by non-split I mean where it doesn’t split into little bombs.