Showing Posts For Timeslice.9027:
I keep seeing people ask for other gametypes such as arena, and every time they do some people reply with the ArenaNet talking point about restricting sPVP to one gametype so that it is easier to balance.
That’s fine.
The thing is, conquest is really, really boring. I say this as someone who couldn’t wait for GW2 to launch after having PVPed non-stop during each beta weekend. Fast forward 2 months and I don’t even log in any more, and when I did I was doing PVE (leveled to 69).
We all know that there is no ladder in sPVP, no spectator system, no dueling, and no private servers. This is pretty sad from a game that apparently wanted to be an esport, but the thing is, I’m not sure implementing these things will add much interest to sPVP — because conquest is just utterly dull.
I really think it’s a bad idea to focus on one gametype when the chosen gametype is not very interesting. Give us arena, give us CTF, give us payload. Make the game FUN, and worry about balance later. Because games are supposed to be FUN, and right now what you have is a game that is balanced, but not very fun to play.
Do people not realize that in a teamfight, the moa’d person is completely and utterly defenseless? He loses access to his heal, his defensive cooldowns, his elite, his control — everything. It is the definition of being a sitting duck. If you don’t understand that moa is an IWIN in sPVP then I don’t know what to say.
Jesus, the simple fact that we can’t even agree that Moa is broken really goes to show how biased people are towards their classes in MMOs. It’s like this in EVERY GAME. Look at it objectively for once instead of being biased based on your class.
As someone who has also played an engineer for quite a while I can also point out what is overpowered about that class: 8 second CD net shot and underwater grenades. If you can’t see how ridiculously OP Moa Morph is then that’s just sad.
Hahaha, wow. I played as an engineer in all 3 BWEs but have recently given up and went Mesmer. All I can say is that I don’t know why the hell I was wasting my time with an engineer when a 80 PVP mesmer is 2 minutes away. It almost feels like cheating.
Anyway I’m really enjoying the class but by far the most broken thing in the game in terms of IWIN is Moa Morph. I honestly feel guilty using it — it’s a one button win every time. In group fights it leaves someone absolutely defenseless as they get focus fired, unable to do anything for 10 seconds. And never mind 1v1; in those cases its a 1v0 for 10 seconds as your opponent runs around helpless. Utterly broken. I actually feel bad using it and often have to apologize in /map chat because I know the other player is raging.
So just saying, I’ll be sticking with Mesmer but let’s be honest here, Moa Morph is completely broken and needs a huge nerf. CC in GW2 is short but this spell is the exception. It should be 5 seconds MAX, or break on single target damage.
I don’t think that interrupting your own skills should give them a 3 second cooldown. If there was no penalty for it, you could fake-cast your healing spell (since the glowy animation is pretty obvious), and then when your enemy tries to interrupt you it won’t give you the interrupt cooldown. Definitely would add to the skill elements of the game, imo.
Well in TF2 (which the GW2 FT is supposedly based on), the Flamethrower is also aoe but it does HUGE single target damage as well. You’re forgetting that most melee weapons (greatsword for warriors, for example) do huge aoe damage. Saying that the Flamethrower should have low damage because it’s aoe just doesn’t match up with other close range weapons in this game.
I think the main thing is that a 3 kit build is fundamentally not viable do to a lack of stunbreakers and condition removal. If the 5 skill on the FT was a blind area it would solve the former; perhaps buffing the condition removal on the Elixir Gun would solve the latter. And no, having a 20% chance to remove a condition is not condition removal. Making the Elixir Gun #3 remove conditions from yourself as well as allies would be HUGE.
The problem is that since engineers are the only class that can use those weapons, ArenaNet would have to devote a ton of resources to make skins for one of the most underpopulated classes. It’s just not worth it to please something like 9% of their playerbase.
Maybe there could be a couple rare skins for the armed kits — Tool Kit, Flamethrower, and Elixir Gun. That would be an okay compromise.
I’ve been an Engineer since BWE1 and before GW2 launched the first thing I would do as soon as the beta servers went online was rush to the mists and see what they changed with the flamethrower. Losing backdraft hurt and it’s replacement seemed thrown together without much thought, but nevertheless the FT is a little bit better than it was way back in BWE1. It still doesn’t really work as a main weapon though (believe me I tried, reaching rank 20 by BWE3 and having done a ton of tournaments since launch). So I thought I would explain what needs to change and WHY those things need to change.
First we need to accept what the flamethrower is: a close-range offensive weapon. Back in the BWEs I would have said that it was apparently a control weapon, but ArenaNet said that that was not their intention, and it was underscored by the removal of backdraft.
Okay so let’s look at the skills and analyze what needs to change about them:
1. Flame Jet
The damage on the auto attack is too low. Leaving bugs like kits-don’t-stay-on-auto-attack and the tons of times where the spray misses absolutely everything, a full channel is just not worth it, especially in melee range. On solution is to make more ticks proc burning, thus making it less punishing when your spray bugs out and misses several hits. Or, if the missing is fixed, a simple damage buff is needed (10-20%).
2. Fire Blast
A lot of people think this should explode when it hits your target. I disagree. Fire Blast is currently a skill shot that requires precise positioning and a CC setup (usually net shot or air blast). The problem is that it doesn’t do enough damage to reward the player for lining up the skill shot.
Making it auto-detonate on contact would take any type of positional awareness out of the skill and the damage would in fact have to be NERFED to compensate for that. No, I think it’s fine how it currently stands mechanically, it just needs to be more rewarding for landing an admittedly-difficult hit. The travel time is also very slow which makes it dodgeable. This is a good thing. But it means it should do more damage. Not saying it should do Hundred Blades levels of damage, but landing a Fire Blast is currently much harder than landing a HB.
3. Air Blast
No issues with this skill.
4. Napalm
This skill doesn’t synergize at all with the Flamethrower itself, but when used as a quick swap to and from the FT to place a fire field, it works fine. So I guess it depends on your perspective. Skills like this and 3 Air Blast make the FT kit far more useful as a “utility slot” in the typical sense of the word, where you switch to the weapon for a knockback and then go back to using your “real” weapon — the one that actually does damage. I’m fine with this one staying the way it is but perhaps something could be done to make it synergize a little with the Flamethrower itself. Maybe Air Blast should be a blast finisher, allowing you to combo with Napalm. Something like that, maybe.
5. Smoke Thing (me not knowing this skill’s name perhaps shows how much thought went into the designing of this skill, no offense)
Okay so ArenaNet removed the control skill Backdraft (which used to pull enemies to you and burn them) and replaced it with this, a defensive skill — which is a bit weird since the Flamethrower is not what you would consider a defensive kit. The radius on this skill is laughably short however.
It is nice that you can use it while stunned, but since it only blinds once you will get hit by Hundred Blades or Pistol Whip 9 times instead of 10, and you’ll still be dead. I propose changing this skill to drop a smoke field that perma-blinds inside of it for 3 or 4 seconds (you can keep the radius the same if you want). I believe that this would do two things:
- It would give multi-kit engineers a replacement for their lack of stun-removal. Currently you simply can NOT use 3 kits in PVP. You need a stun-breaker to combat the many burst builds that are currently out there. If the FT 5 could drop a smoke field, you could switch the the FT and use it while stunned, negating things like HB or Pistol Whip assuming you haven’t put it on cooldown. Meanwhile, it could still be countered by things like Dragon’s Tooth.
- It would make the 5 skill far more used since you can use the smoke field to combo. Right the 5 skill is alright but so very situational — and even then it is not that effective.
With those changes I think the Flamethrower would be a far better weapon, and one that could be used in PVP. The “armed kits” need a lot of help if their design intention was to be weapons that made up for engineers only having one primary weapon.
Thoughts?
(edited by Moderator)
If you try to use the flamethrower kit as a primary weapon, you’re gonna have a bad time.
The problem with the Tool Kit (and the Flamethrower kit too) is that it’s damage really only comes from two skills. Meanwhile the Tool Kit 2 is really only useful for kiting (I have found it useful is certain situations though), while the 5 skill is completely and utterly useless: its cast time is way too long and it only will work on things that are already close range.
As someone mentioned, Tool Kit is really only useful for the 4 skill, and for the ‘fun factor’ of pry bar. Using it as a real weapon is fun but definitely not effective in PVE or PVP.
My proposed changes would be:
- 2 Skill cast time significantly reduced.
- 5 Skill range increased to ~900, or cast time significantly reduced.
- 5 Skill causes damage to all enemies pulled.
Thanks for the answer, this has been driving me crazy since BWE1!
the ‘cripple targets when you immobilize them’ trait does not work with the Net Turret or the Throw Net toolbelt skill.
Also, the ‘cripple targets when you immobilize them’ trait does not work with the Net Turret or the Throw Net toolbelt skill.
bumping just in case
After setting auto-attack on a kit, swapping to a different weapon will reset the auto-attack settings so that when you go back into a kit, it does NOT auto-attack. This is incredibly frustrating for the close-range kits, Tool kit and Flamethrower in particular.
I’m assuming you guys are aware of this since it’s been like this since BWE1, but can you please, PLEASE fix this? I’m assuming it has to do with the game considering kits as bundles rather than weapons, but god is this frustrating.