Can condition damage really make up for lack of direct damage?
in Engineer
Posted by: Subhuman Filth.9562
Showing Posts For Subhuman Filth.9562:
Fans: “There is nothing to work towards in this game. Booo!”
ArenaNet: “Alright, here’s unique items that are very hard to obtain and a wee bit stronger than the top tier.”
Fans: “You said you’ll never introduce stronger items. Booo!”
Sorry, ArenaNet… you just can’t win.
I think people should look at ascended gear as the peak in gear evolution. It’s what comes after exotic, and it’s meant to be gear with staying power. It’s not like with WoW where you get the next content and you go from epics back to blues. This is rather the next step in gear.
I like the idea of having a specific gear that you can then customize and work on, while then just applying skins as you see fit. Hope this is something like that.
Ok, why don’t they just use rare-skinned exotics to fill that role? Whats the difference between Rare → exotic and exotic → ascended? They could have just made the new challenging skins have exotic stats and exceptional art like legendary weapons, and everything would have been grat. They’re toeing a very slippery slope to gear-treadmilling the game and anyone who has played any other MMO for any significant length of time knows what a horrible idea that is.
Ok, this is really incredibly worrisome to me and I really REALLY hope Anet knows what its doing with this.
If this is just the final tier of armor that can only be attained by exceptionally challenging content (like the new dungeon purports to be), and it will NEVER go higher than this, then I applaud this change and am pleased with the concept. This game does need to start rewarding exceptional skill and persistence over grind. If this is the beginning of the slippery slope to gear treadmilling, then I dunno if I can keep playing this game. That sort of design is really exhausting, unpleasant, and I expect better from the amazing developers who brought us this game.
The hyperlink is broken, the link itself works fine. Copy-paste it.
Ad hominem adds nothing to the discussion and you’d do well to abandon it. Insulting me personally isn’t going to do you any favors.
Let me try to rephrase why I think pistol is boring. Of the three skills on the weapon, there is only one for which any argument could be made that it has some tactical use, and that is, of course, static shot. Explosive shot is a filler skill that does (inadequate) raw damage, and there is no reason not to use poison dart volley on cooldown. Poison uptime to cover heals is a non-issue because, with zero traits or salient runes, it produces a 12.5s poison on an 8 second cooldown, a 156% uptime on the condition which also does more direct dps than explosive shot.
I’m more than happy to concede that static shot is not inherently a poorly designed skill. Skillfully applied, it can cancel out a large incoming attack or punish a quick flurry of small ones. However, in light of the rest of the weapon’s function, this ability is pidgeonholed cleanly into something that you quickly swap to pistol to use, then quickly swap to something else to carry on with whatever it is you were doing. The problem is that it is disadvantageous to use our primary weapon for more than about a second at a time, even when fully traited to utilize the pistol. Of course, in pve it’s virtually guaranteed that you’re just going to hit it on cooldown due to the clockwork regularity of mob attacks and the amount of damage the skill does.
Warriors, using only an untraited “Shake it off,” have arguably as much support capability as an engineer in any role simply due to the extremely low-cooldown teamwide stun break. Specced for support, Warriors drastically exceed anything an engineer can bring to the table, while still doing as much or more damage. This isn’t a question of homogenization, it’s one of balance.
I wasn’t comparing classes, I was demonstrating that pistol, as a primary weapon, is inadequate compared to the offerings presented by other classes, and indeed compared to a few (really just one) of our kits. The difference is we have no choice as to whether or not to take a primary weapon, and if that weapon is relegated to being couple of situational tools, then I don’t think that’s a terribly acceptable situation to be placed in.
I don’t think the engineer is a bad class, and I’ve never tried to make that claim here. I think the class definitely needs some work, but that’s not really relevant to the issue at hand.
My points boil down to:
1. Pistol does inadequate damage for a primary weapon, and
2. The way pistol does its damage is uninspired, boring, and devoid of thought on the part of the player, basically boiling down to mash-on-cooldown. This is un-fun.
I think I’ve adequately covered why these things are, in fact, true.
Not sure what stats your using, but with runes of the undead and rabid amulet, my poison dart volley is 1800-2000 direct damage, plus the poison damage.
I’m using 10/30/0/30/0, the traditional build used to optimize pistol damage. I have no idea how you would be getting twice the direct damage with identical gear. Switching to berserker might do that, but your condition damage would certainly suffer. I am doing weighted averages for damage per hit based on crit rate and crit damage. Your crits will be higher than this number, your regular hits lower.
Your sure not being reasonable here, because your comparing the 2 most solid burst damage classes in “glass cannon” divinity gear and +crit% gear to engineer condition damage build. That it no manner, a reasonable comparison.
I am sorry, but how do you expect to compare a condition damage engineer with a non-damage trait set up (I say non-damage confidently based on the damage you claim here in that gear) to the top two burst damage classes in full glass cannon/burst gear.
This comparison isn’t reasonable, much less logical.
I used extreme examples to underscore the magnitude of the pistol’s weakness, but I’m certain you could perform similar tests with guardian, mesmer, and others that would similarly support my claim. They might only kill targets 50% faster, rather than 100%, but that’s not much to back the assertion that pistol is powerful, is it? I used condition damage to challenge your assertion that your pure condition damage engineer does effective damage.
And because you brought it up…
Engineer with zerk amulet and gem, full divinity runes:
Explosive shot- ~400 damage per hit + 120 bleed damage over 2 seconds
Poison dart volley: ~2700 direct damage over 1.75 seconds + 120*11 seconds
Kills the medium dummy in a little over 11 seconds.
Better, still not good.
Sorry but it would take about 2800 condition damage to do 226 bleeds. That is not possible or reasonable. Typo?
The total damage is 226, divided over 2.5 seconds. The actual damage per tick is considerably less.
(edited by Subhuman Filth.9562)
Not sure what build your using, but my explosive shot does double the direct damage your claiming. As well it does bleeds not poison.
Perhaps you mean poison dart volley
No, I meant explosive shot. I used pvp gear to equalize the differences in gear, so the damage is inherently going to be lower than what you see in pve across the board. If I were to use pve gear numbers, the damage gap would be far more pronounced between engineer and the others simply because of the way that power and crit geometrically scale compared to condition’s pathetic linear scaling. Power/crit with pistols would show higher numbers, but even that is pitiful compared to what the others put out.
Edit: My mistake, I wrote poison instead of bleed. Corrected, and everything else stands true.
(edited by Subhuman Filth.9562)
Engineer with full nightmare/rabid amulet and gem:
poison dart volley against medium target: ~1000 direct damage on average, plus 14*225 over the course of 14 seconds.
Explosive shot does ~175 damage per shot (generously) + 226 bleed damage over 2.5 seconds. fires about 2 shots every 1.25s
Kills the medium dummy in about 14 seconds.
Thief with divinity runes and berserker amulet/gem
autoattack: ~1800-2000 dps
Pistol whip: ~4000 damage over about 1.2 seconds
kills the medium target in about 7 seconds. Slightly faster with both shortbow and dagger, but we’re comparing apples to apples here.
Warrior with identical gear
Axe autoattack: about 3.4k dps.
kills the medium target in about 4.4 seconds
These are all pure glass cannon builds, with traits and gear catering to the strengths of the individual weapons. In addition, condition builds actually reduce the damage of everyone else in a party because of the way conditions overlap (or rather, fail to), but this is a systemic problem with condition damage, not the pistol itself. Please recognize that something is in fact wrong with this weapon, due to both this fact and the fact that it is completely strategically void. Optimum efficiency comes from mashing attacks the second they are on cooldown with no regard for enemy placement or activity.
(edited by Subhuman Filth.9562)
Pistol #2 does 1800-2000 for me with no power in any gear and pure condition builds, and that does not count the condition damage.
Pistol #3 does a nice blind and the confusion is great condition damage, and works with the other 2 condition damage skills we have.
Reworking the pistol is the worst idea out there. They simply need to allow explosive shot to have 1s more on the bleed, if not 2s. Problem solved.
I urge you to play literally any other class in the game, or even compare this to a grenade or FT build. Those numbers are not large. I agree with you that pistol 3 is excellent for the on-demand blind, but that does nothing to push the weapon to the forefront of an engineer’s arsenal. You can get near 100% of the usefulness of the pistol by switching into it for a fraction of a second to pop off the static shot or potentially the dart volley then immediately switching back. It feels more like 2 utility skills than a proper weapon. Compare that to thief sword or warrior axe/sword.
Subhuman Filth“All sorts of detail on a really good idea!” -LoreChief
I love this idea, and thank you for putting in all the detail you did. Can you come up with a shorter version of this to tack onto the front page?
Haha, alright. How about
-Rework pistol to be rewarding, strategic, and powerful in line with weapons other classes enjoy.
(Cont’d from last post)
Pistol 1
Crack shot
.75s cast
Range: 900
Take aim and fire a round chambered in your pistol, delivering the effect of the current ammo type.
-> club
.5s cast
Range: 130
Club your foe with the butt of your pistol.
This is a chain skill which, if the engineer’s gun is loaded, fires gun, and otherwise performs a melee-range pistol whip. The cast time has been lengthened, but the power scaling of the skill should be significantly increased from what Explosive Shot currently sits at. This allows an engineer who would prefer to fire slowly, steadily, and accurately to take advantage of power and crit to deal substantial sustained damage to a target. Ammo “boons” are removed in the order that they are loaded, and deliver the effect described.
Pistol 2
Fan
.5s cast
5s cooldown
Range: 600
Quickly fire a barrage of shells at your target, emptying your pistol and providing additional effects based on the ammunition used. 50% chance per shot of delivering a glancing blow
This skill removes all Ammo “boons” and fires every shell that’s been loaded simultaneously (think of Blunderbuss from the rifle). It delivers the additional effect if 3 explosive, poison, or static shells have been loaded into the rifle, to inject some additional utility. As such, this skill simultaneously functions as a burn, a blind, a weakness, and a source of powerful burst, provided the engineer has the foresight to prepare the effect he is going to need.
For example, an engineer who sees a thief vanish near him may quickly empty his chamber and refill it with static shot so that he might be able to drop a blind and a nasty stack of confusion on the thief as soon as he re-emerges for a cloak-and-dagger. An engineer who has been fighting a long battle with a guardian might, halfway through, load up on poison shells to cut through the guardian’s defenses and weaken his regenerative power before switching back to a full chamber of explosive shot to finish the job. A clever opponent might notice the vicious instant barrage of shells flying at them every 6s, and time their dodges to avoid the Fan attack whenever it’s on cooldown. A cleverer engineer might load two explosive shells before his 3-shot payload of choice to bluff out his opponent’s dodges before unleashing the rest.
It may seem like this is an absolute buff to the pistol, so I’ll be straight—I think the pistol needs all the help it can get. As it stands right now, it is just not really a viable choice as a primary weapon, but works primarily as a quick swap-in that a kit-user might utilize for a quick reactive blind or poison volley. While these changes would definitely buff up the offensive power of the pistol, it would diminish it’s role as an on-demand utility by forcing primary kit-users to spend a little bit more time with the gun in order to get its full potential. You could even expand the Coated Bullets trait to allow one more shell in the chamber to allow compound effects when fanning the handgun—A worthy reward for someone willing to invest traits heavily into pistol use.
tl;dr: This idea might increase pistol’s viability as a primary weapon while lessening its role as a stopgap condition dropper for specs who don’t use it, while simultaneously adding a lot to the engineer’s flavor.
Lets face it, our primary weapons suck. Pistol is a poorly scaling, mash-on-cooldown mess, and rifle is an awkwardly designed instrument with a few good utilities, but not a huge amount in the way of damage. It’s a little unfortunate that just because we have kits, we’re essentially forced into using them for our actual damage.
I had an idea I’d been mulling over for correcting the weak design on the main-handpistol, which would keep strong to the engineer theme while providing it with the amount of strategy and oomph that other classes enjoy from their weapons, as well as reclaiming a little bit of that cool gunslinger pastiche that thieves have been hogging. I’m going to start with skill #3 because the other two would make little sense without it.
Pistol 3
Load Pistol
0s cast
Pistol 3 causes you to create a new bundle item, much like a weapon kit, where the weapon skills are replaced by these five:
1. Load Explosive Shell
.25s cast time
Load an explosive shell that explodes on impact, causing bleeding to nearby foes. If three or more explosive shells are fired at once, cause burning as well.
Bleeding(3s)
Burning(2s) when Fan is used with 3 or more explosive shells in the chamber.
Radius: 120
2. Load Poison Dart
.25s cast time
Load a dart that poisons foes. If three or more darts are fired at once, cause weakness as well.
Poison(3s)
Weakness(4s) when Fan is activated with 3 or more darts in the chamber.
3. Load Static Shell
.25s cast time
Load a lightning shot which confuses targets. If three or more static shells are fired at once, the shot ricochets to nearby targets and blinds them.
Confusion(2.5s)
Blind(4s) and ricochet when Fan is activated with 3 or more static shells in the chamber.
4. Unload chamber
0s cast time
Unloads all shells currently in the chamber.
5. Close chamber
0s cast time
Closes the ammunition chamber and readies pistol for use.
5 shells could be loaded at any given time, permitting a mix of ammunition types as would befit the situation at hand. One secondary effect could be added to the Fan skill per load of shot by having a majority of one type of shell. Loaded ammo could be represented as a special boon/condition above the skill bar. For example, an engineer expecting to be surprised might have something like this in his status effects bar (represented by icons, of course) in order to weaken the brunt of an ambush:
[Static Shell][Static Shell][Static Shell][Explosive Shell][Explosive shell]
With that in mind, lets move on to the first and second skills.
(continued next post)
Please please please do not make future jump puzzles easier based on whiners who “gave up in disgust.” This is some of the best quality content I’ve seen in the game, and certainly the most challenging. If anything I feel like the rewards for these kinds of things should be enhanced, as jps are the most thrilling, difficult part of the game. Completing events as hard as the halloween tower feel way more heroic and impressive than facegrinding the trading post or exploiting mystic forge bugs, so why is one rewarded with legendaries and the other with an achievement nobody will ever see?
Honestly, the puzzle was entirely doable with every race, even with tons of charr and norn blocking your view (I did), was absolutely amazing visually, and was a challenge the likes of which is rare in modern video games, much less MMOs. Achieving this balance is no mean feat in game design, and you’ve walked the balance beautifully. Bravo, Josh.
You know you can throw grenades behind you, right? You can make it function exactly like the bomb kit, but for much higher damage. The only significant thing you lose is smoke bomb, which isn’t really relevant for kiting anyway.
Bad idea. But a good idea would be to make the projectiles move faster like they did for the Mesmer’s Scepter.
I would argue that this would make them overpowered (if you don’t consider them that already).
Having speed affected by inheritance would make grenades behave consistently at all times as opposed to how they do now. Simply making them go faster does not fix the problem, its a bandaid and it will still be noticeable when moving any direction.
They’re not overpowered at all. They put us on par (or slightly under, rather) with every other class in the game. You’re just used to doing terrible damage.
No. This is a terrible idea. If you want to throw the grenades at a higher velocity, aim farther away from your body.
No, it had it absolutely dead wrong. Everyone knows grenades suck for damage in sPvP, it’s not a response that’s going to impress or inform anyone, and it wasn’t even what he was asking.
Right now in pve there is absolutely nothing an engineer can do that even approaches the damage and utility that the grenade kit puts out. Please dont start with the “LOL ELIXIR GUN” because grenade specs can just as easily (and should) carry an elixir gun to throw down light fields and fumigates as an elixir specced build, while simultaneously putting out tons of offensive control and damage that elixir builds can’t hope to match.
Compounding this problem is the fact that grenade spam is an exhausting (physically and mentally) and unfun experience. It being our only effectively viable pve build really puts a damper on my enthusiasm for my engineer in dungeons and the overworld, and I’ve just started playing other classes because they’re simply more fun.