Guild Wars 2

Chaith.8256:

Static Discharge Rifles are legit single target damage. I’m assuming you are more interested in PvP/WvW since this is a Teldo build. The drawbacks that keep me from using it:

• The utilities that some SD builds take can be sub-par at times – draining utility & active defenses. Utility Goggles, Personal Battering Ram, Rifle Turret, I’m lookin’ at you.

• Glass Engie needs to be played very defensively. Static Discharge (SD) builds obviously have decent max range, but require some pretty offensive positioning to do the real damage with Blunderbus & Jump Shot.

• Teamfight performance isn’t stellar. Not only are you constantly worried about your survival, your cleave damage isn’t super punishing & intimidating like Grenade showers are.

• Personally, I find Engineer boring and auto attack-dependent without 2 kits. Nearly unplayable, for me – unless I have a turret to micromanage. But like I said, that’s a personal preference.

Some things you could do to improve on your SD build that I notice:

• Try out taking Rifle Turret over the Personal Battering Ram. It will give you much more SD trait procs, and surprise shot is much easier to hit, and just way more damaging. I would even rather have the ability to drop a turret then the stanky effect the Ram has when you activate it, too.. phew. I would give up the Utility Goggles to run Elixir S on my SD builds. The invisibility on demand and invuln is going to make you a lot harder to take down. You do give up an SD trait proc. I think it’s worth it. I would almost be tempted to take Healing Turret over Medkit, for actual condition removal – being 100% unable to remove immobilize outside of Overcharged Shot is really a problem now that everything stacks in duration. However, that would leave you without fury, and a bit of a waste of the 30pts invested in tools.

yeah. most of this.
I ran/run SD rifle after getting really bored with grenades.

Burst is huge. Great for spvp, and pve. wvw…. its ok. grenade range, aoe, and ability to hit on walls is just too useful. but still rifle is ok. and decent for roaming.

Net shot is effective in peeling in team fights. And overcharged shot can be as well. (also for knocking people off cliffs)
Jump shot is nigh useless in combat really. will get you killed more often then not. Keep your distance. does work as a kill move. vs low immobalized targets, or downed.

There are build variants. that linked one is not what I run.
I USED to run, Elixir H, toolkit, Elixir U, Rocketboots.
Kick was really effective with discharge. and the active breaking stun was effective.
Changes to stun breaking, etc have changed that up.
Boots are still good though, I like the leap forward, and breaking immo, chill, slow.

currently, H, toolkit, U, elixir B. With an HGH build.

HGH vs 30 tools is also an option. HGH builds have less burst, but provide team buffs, higher base hp. With STABILITY added to elixir B throw. This is pretty strong now. U was buffed as well.
The crit on 30 tools is higher burst and dps.

Rifle turrets shot of course is nice.

honestly, if you are running around with +100% duration, you’ve completely kitten yourself.
that is coming at the cost of much stronger sigils, runes, buffs or traits.

and 100% burn uptime in party play is just awful, unless you are the ONLY one with any burns.

Yeah it is good vs cond removal, that is true.

In general, I do not feel burns are just that great, with cond removal, and the inablity to stack with other sources of burn.
Add into this, my already asserted damage scaling issues.

Blunderbuss is 1.6 coeff at 100 distance, 1 at 400.
4 stacks of 4s bleed., or 1 stack.
Blowtorch is .99coef at 200, or .330 at 600.
3stacks of 2s burn, or 1 stack.

At default, blowtorch looks pretty good. that naked burn will deal alot more then 4 stacks of bleed.
But as noted. rifle has a higher base damage. so that 1.6 vs .99 is more like 2 vs 1.
then, previously, riflemod 10%. 2.2 vs 1. coeff. (again, that 2% per conditions is a nice buff for pistols. poison, blind,confusion, burn and bleed. 100% up time on bleed and poison. 50% on confuse/20% on blind and burn. and more with vul on crit possibly, as well as in team fights 100% on all 6, and possibly more. Seriously that is a huge addition to pistol engineers in pve. I am going to look it for sure.)
In game it really stands out. run a crit/crit damage build. might, and % modifers like I stated.
watch blunderbuss crit for like 4-5k vs armored targets regularly. Watch your blowtorch crit for 1k. The burn doesnt make up for it. and it has a longer CD. and in a group or pvp it can be cleansed or hit 100% uptime and never even really get applied.
I leveled pistol, but had to abandon it when I noticed my rifle was doing a good 50% more damage, or higher.

things do play out a bit different in spvp. as you can not attain the massive levels of crit damage, or the like you can in pve or wvw. Assassin’s gear stats do not exist.

probably got a bit off target there.
Thanks for the updates.

yeah, blowtorch is a bit weak. the burn is.. nice. but damage/cooldown doesn’t quite match up. Particularly as a skill that doesn’t have any utility. and burn stacking in parties being ineffective.

Can be pared with flamethrower of course. Applying your burns, swaping to flamejet, getting your damage buff right away. and even comboing projectiles with napalms new fire field. which was sorely needed as well.

The other issue was damage was multiplicative from other sources for direct damage.
Taking the rifle.
2373 damage over 2.7s.
10% rifle mod, 5% damage to bleeding target. 5% force sigil. 5% 6/6 strength runes.
Theres more, but lets just use them.
That is not 2373* 25% for 2966.
it is in fact, 2373*10*5*5*5 for 3022. 27.34% increase, not 25%.

This just makes the gap get bigger comparatively. (its also why that 5% force sigil is probably the best, and getting 6/6 is probably better then +might duration with split runes people like to do.)

that seems like you are making excuses though. “they are utility, so they dont need damage”

right, because rifle and pistol don’t have utility?

Rifle has superior range. Piercing/aoe. targeted root. a knockdown with high damage attached. a leapcombo with massive damage attached. high damage aoe bleed.
Pistol has an aoe blind on call with good damage. aoe poison with good damage. blowtorch is weak. aoe root/snare.

Supposed utility does not justify inferior base scaling. nor poor coefficients. (or lying tooltips. I wonder if they even KNOW pistol is .8 seconds, not .5. and flamejet is 2.5s, not 2s.)

NevirSayDie.6235:

Kits got sigils about a year ago. It was the same patch that reduced the damage on grenade 1 by 30%. I believe kit attack value was normalized to 969 around the same time.

I meant that each skill has a base damage and a power modifier. Kit attacks have never really been below other profession’s weapon skills in terms of dps, so I think it’s not been an issue at all honestly. However, ascended is a direct damage buff that does put kits somewhat behind the power creep curve.

skill coeff*weapon damage*power/armor=damage dealt.
Skills do not have base damage’s at all. They do have hidden coefficients. many of which are not the same in pve/wvw as they are in spvp.
These in theory could be buffed to make kits scale with power better to compensate with lower kit weapon damage. but for some reason do not.

This is a large reason why rifles are/were so strong. their base damage is much higher then kits or even pistols.
one would expect 1 handed weapons to have higher attack speeds to counter this higher base damage. Most do not. only ranger with its .5s short bow does.

last I knew, kit damage very much was highly underpar. Which the exception of grenades, which was due to grenadier and steel packed of course.

example. Rifle.
hipshot
.650coeff.
.9s attack speed.
985-1204 damage at exotic level. 1095 average.

pistol
explosive shot.
.350 coeff.
.8 attack speed.
876-1028 damage at exotic level 952 average.

flame thrower.
flame jet
1.5coeff.
2.5s attack speed.
10 hits over 2.5s. (note the skill clearly lies. 5 attacks per second, should be 15, not 10 over 2.5)
876-969 weapon damage I’m seeing. I dont have copies of my own testing. so will take these. 922.5 average damage.

For ease, Im going to round.
.9×3 is 2.7s, and .8×3 is 2.4s. But I will say both pistol and rifle hit 3 times over that 2.5s duration of flame jet.

So, lets say 2000 power, and 1800 armor(cloth) I will ignore condition damage for a moment. As well as traits that effect only one element. 10% rifle mod is huge though, as well as coated bullets. Or as noted grenadier makes grenades viable.

rifle.
.650*1095*2000/1800= 791/hit, with 3 hits averaging, 2373 damage over 2.7s.
pistol.
.350*952*2000/1800=370/hit, with 3 hits averaging, 1111 damage over 2.7s. (coated bullet double hitting, effectively doubling your damage for 2222)
Flamethrower.
1.5*923*2000/1800=1538 over 2.5s.

flamethowers base damage is woefully, lower then rifle. better then default pistol. but coated bullets is huge.
Conditions. bleeds and burns of course. the 1s burn on flamejet in comparison to its 2.5s cast time is pretty bad. the 10% damage buff only applies after that 2.5s cast. Thankfully burns from other sources. like burn on crit.
crit itself and crit damage here also heavily buff rifles damage in comparison. Run around with 40-60% crit, add in fury, might, and 40-60% crit DAMAGE. and kits are left in the dust.(as well as conditions for that matter..) except for grenades.

ah thats right.
lets see. 2s internal cooldown on sigil of str.

13s duration with 30 alch, and no others. will only be 2-3stacks on average even with a high crit rate. yeah, battle pretty much dominates that.
5% force is far better, particularly for rifles all situations.
Pistols 5% force, and on kill probably.
although spvp downed alot, so force and battle.

not sure if this will be faster to ask, or look up.

Refresher on the current mechanics of sigils for engineers?

5% damage on weapon is active all the time. right?

power, cond or prec on kill, applies the buff. this buff lingers till death, even if you remove the weapon in question and swap to another. (this is easy with other classes due to weapon swap, a pain on engineers, due to having to leave combat and physically swap)

Proc on weapon swap. I can’t remember if this worked for engineers swapping to kits. I think so right? seem to remember a strong aoe bleed that I had was very effective.

proc on crit. did this one work with kits? trying to figure out, why I wasn’t using might on crit.

the 969 is max damage. well below exotic. the average was like 820 iirc. And the skill modifiers were not boosted to compensate for this. It was a serious problem, and a large reason kits were so bad. save grenades, which gain so much from steel packed and grenadier.

Yeah, when I left. Nades were still the best of course. hgh was popular.

However, the merits of tools 30% crit damage buff were getting known. It was a higher pure damage calculation then hgh’s power/cond.

rifle/static/toolkits burst damage was gaining popularity. both hgh or 30 tools variety.
I was using it for spvp, pve, and even wvw. mostly because I was so bored of grenades. although grenades were still clearly much stronger for wvw. Its burst was unquestionable very effective in spvp however. and with that stability on call. yeah.

sitting duck buff hit just prior, and that was amazing.
As well as kits getting weapon stats, and sigils.

nah. some major changes really.

Some of the things I note most important.

Stability shifts. and stunbreaks. as you note.
Stability on elixir b throw. wHHAAAAAA. thats… crazy. Elixir B was a god mode dps buff on self. Its throw was “ok”. most useful for hgh and 409. but elixir B’s self use was so good, it made up for it.
It was a glass cannon skill though.
Giving stability on throw to elixir B, means unbreakable stomps, as well as wall dives. I don’t really know why they would do this. B was good enough as it was. But it was situational. Other abilities gave more utility in wvw,spvp.

U, S and R for example.
Throw S just being stealth is more reliable. nice. invis stomps are good too.

U’s haste was buffed, and its debuffs nerfed. so its more useful.

Elixirs in general all got buffed it seems. which is odd considering they were already better then gadgets, and miles beyond turrets.
I like the new rocket boots. Stunbreak loss hurts… but overall more functional. that said, im taking it off my bar to put B back on.

Flame thrower. I see a 10% damage buff to skill 1 vs a burning target. given the stacking nature of damage buffs. I wonder how much that helps. it was WAY below average damage.
Fire field throw napalm. Thank god.

master level coated bullets. good for leveling.

Blind instead of poison acidic coating. hrm. better. but still reactionary. Blind needs to be on call. you can NOT have your blind on cooldown, because it procced on some random auto attack, leaving the warrior free to nail you with his execution. Same reason firearm blind proc is kitten

ASSIN stats. whooooo boy. this should outdo beserkers in all ways for all specs. If only it was an option in Spvp, etc.

Turrets in WvW need deployable turrets to be working. is that fixed yet?
kit base weapon damage damage still below par, or has that been buffed? It was already set at “master” quality, falling far below exotic. with ascended, it will be far behind, if it was not buffed.

That 2% per condition in firearms trait is a pretty powerful pve trait. A nice pistol buff.

Hey guys and girls. some friends talking about GW2 got me the bug again.
Shelved Terraria, LoL, and PoE and took a look in game to see what was up.

Looking at the patch notes page, last I looked at them was March.

Anyone willing to give me a rundown on some of the key engineer changes since then? Particularly things that may not have been in the notes. always lots of hidden things.

Got alot to catch up on. luck changes. wvw changes..

Zenguy.6421:

Useful for PvE world bosses, but only on our main weapon, not kits.
(Still not as good as Grenadier, which is effectively a 50% increase to grenade dps)

Can see the following becoming common with world bosses:

1. While waiting for world boss to spawn Eng sets Firearms 30 to Modified Ammo
2. When boss spawns, Eng walks to middle of crowd and presses 1 for autoattack
3. Player goes afk
4. Boss dies: player returns, raids chest and resets Firearms 30 trait to whatever it was before the event.

afk world bosses is about it.
where you are standing in place, afk firing.

Anywhere else, sitting duck is a given. Hair trigger 20% cdr on rifle skills is a superior dps gain. (cant get in close enough to use the attacks on world bosses). and of course rifle mod.

Basically still no choice here. there is 1 correct path.

It would probably work well for pistol. Stacking 2-4 conditions near 100% uptime. Pistols damage is already 60% direct, and 40% condition. This trait which effectively maintains that split in damage scaling.

mod ammunition is kindof terrible. Ask any alch engi about how well that 2% per boon works.
stick with hair trigger over it.

And the 5% damage when end is not full is better then the burning on crit anyway.

yeah. I feel like this patch did nothing useful. some nerfs..

Maybe some hidden changes.

Like is incendiary still single target or is it aoe now? cuase you know, THAT is the main reason it was terrible.

Its a shame the balance team seems so out of touch.

We need much faster iterations on balance patches. Especially if such changes are going to be so small and not real redesigns of the broken concepts and skills.

ok, actually watched the vid, and not just read the notes, in the op.
wow. give up on engineer ever getting fixed.

They don’t even seem aware of what the problems in engineer design even are.

…And listening to the rest. That buff to confusing images, and spatial surge. rofl. as if I didnt have more then enough reasons to give up on the engineer. When the interviewer flat out calls you out for making something OP. rofl.

Sounds good on paper…

I would be concerned with a targeted nerf to double barrage. Seems to be many classes have similar combos, and they are easier to pull off, and I don’t see them getting targeted nerfs.

cottage.3274:

Khezekiah Bellamy.5016:

@casia, shrapnel doesnt affect explosive shot

i think he meant sharpshooter as he said 5 points in firearms,shrapnel indeed doesn’t affect explosive shot.

yes I did, sorry about that. edited.

Kimbald.2697:

and if not a stunbreaker: add an immobilize or cripple to it, so at least some of the damage lands…

someone did a bit of a necro here. haha.
But still the skill could use one of these touchups.

i did want to comment on this.
Acid bombs initial damage is INSTANT. its 6 ticks of damage over a 5s duration.
.8 scaling per tick. quite impressive really.

to add a bit more, the primary target can be plural. every target hit directly by the piercing bullet will have explosive shots innate bleed attached.

The 5 point firearms trait, sharpshooter, can apply its bleed to every single target hit, on every single hit. Meaning if a target is hit 3 times due to the aoe explosion hitting multiple targets, the target could possibly get 3 stacks of sharpshooter bleed with 1 shot.

in wvw… eh.. 300 damage even 3 times is kindof pathetic.
The nerfed damage on explosive shot, as well as innately lower then rifle weapon damage of pistols, make it not very impressive.

Entropy.4732:

Casia.4281:

Might stacking is not super useful, as the power going into the HORRIBLE scaling on FT means about nothing.

FT is a defensive kit really. As unintuitive as that sounds.

I really beg to differ on this one. Defensive kit??? That’s bookah logic. I’ve noticed a big uptick in numbers when the might is on verses when there is no might (plus I switch back to rifle and grenade kit frequently so whatever scaling happens, it’s offset). And using FT as offensive kit works quite well for me. All it needs is a little kick from time to time and the right play style. If you use Elixir U & B before FT 1 you can peel off 3 FT 1’s in the time of 1 normal one. Does a lot of dam and very effective. Plus, if you strafe left and right while blasting a big group you can flame a ton of people simultaneously and without an annoying red circle to let folks know where not to stand. FT works the best when you are in a group in WVW facing off another group. And it’s amazing for preventing rezzing and finishing off 3-4 downed foes simultaneously.

As per one boon stack = 1 boon for the purposes of Energy Conversion Matrix, I stand corrected. But if you’re a big Elixir drinker, it’s still a good trait, even at 4-5% boost.

FT has horrible scaling. Among the worst in the game offensively.
Stacking +damage doesn’t do much to fix FT becuase the problem is SCALING. Point for point, each point of power, crit, and cond is worth less with FT then it is for other weapons.
Opportunity costs. Gearing, fooding, etc for +duration in order to get higher stacks of might with juggernaut, comes at the price of some OTHER set bonus, or food bonus.
So, you can either feed into FT’s worst stat, in an effort to make kitten poor become mediocre. or you can feed into FT’s good stat, and make its defensive tools even stronger.

Might stacking is not super useful, as the power going into the HORRIBLE scaling on FT means about nothing.

FT is a defensive kit really. As unintuitive as that sounds.

ThunderZtorm.3179:

Palleon.1657:

Found this, which is a complete guide to the event as it stands at the moment.

Why Anet couldnt make something like this so everyone knew, I have no idea

http://dulfy.net/2013/01/29/gw2-living-story-refuge-volunteer-events-guide/

Yeah, it’s really sad that Anet expects that people are able to think for themselves anymore.

Why does everybody need to have their hands held through even the simplest of content? I really don’t understand it. I mean, seriously, I managed to find the special stuff just fine without anyone explicitly telling me THIS IS WHAT YOU DO AND HOW YOU DO IT.

Come on, people, work with that grey matter you have, it is really not that complicated and confusing to figure out.

except you can’t in games. Thinking for yourself means nothing when you don’t know if the next step is in the game yet, or hidden.
You can not as a player tell the difference between a bug, a hidden aspect you haven’t found yet, or something not being in game at all yet.
There is no way to tell the difference between player error or dev error.

I got a thing saying Dissidia. but there was NOTHING in Dissidia. I had to go to wayfarers, because players said so. Then we have stars which shows us some stuff… And then… without Anet exspressely saying, the next step is not in game yet. how long do you think people would have been there looking for step 2 that doesn’t exist?

Breadcrumbs can work. But you better be VERY sure on the dev end, its working 100%, and doesn’t just leave players looking for breadcrumbs that are wrong or don’t exist.

I tested in the mists flamethrower and toolkit.

Average weapon damage seems to be 920 still. 871-969 for kits.
And flamethrower 1 is still 1.5 skill coeff over 2.5s.
Toolkit 1 is still .8 skill coeff for smack/whack.

I see no evidence of any skill coeffs being adjusted. Nor raw weapon damage.

of note, exotic weapon damage:
Rifle: 986-1205 1096 average. +/-109
Staff: 985-1111 1048 av. +/- 63
Hammer: 985-1111 1048 av. +/- 63
Greatsword: 995-1100 1048 av +/- 53
Longbow: 920-1080 1000 av. +/- 80
Shortbow: 905-1000 953 av +/- 48

Pistol: 876-1029 953av +/- 77
Axe: 857-1048 953av +/- 95
Dagger: 924-981 953 av +/- 29
Mace: 895-1010 953 av +/- 58
Scepter: 895-1010 953 av +/- 58
Sword: 905-1000 953 av +/- 48
Shield: 806-909 858 av +/- 52
Torch: 789-926 858 av +/- 69
Horn-814-900 857av +/- 43
Focus: 832-883 858av +/- 26

If anyone was every curious why I’ve pointed to rifle for being strong. ^

hydeaut.1758:

coglin.1496:

they said
“base damage that is consistent with the highest rarity weapons available at the level of the player”

They did not say
“base damage that will now be equal with the highest weapon equipped by the player”.

So you either want to tell me that a base damage of 969 is consistent with the 1205 base damage of a rifle or that a rifle is not an available weapon for an engineer?

I also tend to believe now that it´s no bug, still this patch notes are nothing else but false. So much on reading comprehension (and logic).

If the skill coeffs were adjusted then it would be effectively the same. I have not tested for skill coeff changes yet.

how is this a new build?
I never realized how insanely fotm players can be.. haha.

Good writeup though!
Tools in general is a huge increase in burst potential for any build. Crit damage is inherently overpowered. ( a much larger, bad game design issue)

Delryn.7235:

I agree with SideStep entirely, I mean I appreciate the fact they don’t just downright tell you exactly where and how to do everything but we need SOMETHING to go on. They can inform us about what to do without revealing any spoilers about the event.

If I hadn’t come here I would have no idea there were refugees in Wayfarer Foothills, and though they said there’s new stuff in both locations, I’ve yet to see anything at all in Diessa Plateau, so what’s going on…?

This is the problem with “secrets, and zomg I don’t what my hand held!” in games. you never no what is up to player to figure out, and what is just plain a bug, or not there.

Bouncing hits are multiple target skills. not quite the same as AoE in game terms.

Granted when talking with players, AoE is often used interchangeably. Single target vs AOE. We are simply, simplifying.

What the dev meant, who knows? he may have meant it specifically as area attacks, or he may have meant it as the more euphemism for aoe and multi-hit. anything not single target.

Not all AoE’s are ground targeted persistent aoe sneakyervin.
explosive shot, drakes claw, etc.

Tooltips don’t update properly for many conditions. test it, dont rely on them.

Ideal condition duration is about 6 seconds. 10 max.

Anything over that will be lost due to allied stacking, cleansing, or dead targets.

C is terrible.

R or S.

R’s throw is one of the best skills in an engineer’s arsenal entirely.
Its self use is a stun breaker, and 1 cond removal with 409. +2 dodges.

Case for S was already made.

c is terrible. short cooldowns, yes. but do you really want to spend more time spaming elixirs instead of doing things?

Transmute already turns 8% of conditions on you into boons. Then every elixir you use cleans conditions off you. A 409 engineer is nearly condition immune. You wont ever really have any on you to have C transmute.

excellent. I was not aware of that. should be fantastic for stomps/resing.

And yeah. incoming nerf. haha.

The elixir gun is pretty interesting.

It scales in alot of different directions. This can be an advantage or a disadvantage depending on your playstyle and how you want to look at it.

A main potential flaw is there is very little options for your build. 30 firearms, 30 alch, 10 tools pretty much. its hard to justify anything else.
20 in firearms will give 20% reduced CD. and rifled barrels which is range, and other stuff which I will mention in a moment.
Going 30 fully is hard to not due as 5% damage vs bleeding, and that extra crit/cond works with EG so well.
Alch same deal 15% damage potentially. however, if you are not going for a DD build, you might be able to skip out on going deep here.
10 in tools for kit refinement is a given.

EG 1 scales at .4 direct, and has a 4second bleed. .85 attack speed. 1s weakness.
At a 4s bleed, this is a highly consistent application of bleeds. 4 stacks. without sharpshooter, or any +duration. and it does scale well with +duration.
Pistol 1 is .35 p direct, and 2s bleed. Note then, EG1 is way more cond damage, and direct is pretty close. (weapon damage)

EG2 is .75 and 4 bounces. 8second CD. this is quite a bit of damage. all direct.
EG3 is TERRIBLE. .08 scaling. 5 hits over 2.5s. Insanely low. 1s poisonx5 hits, 5s duration, and 5 6s vuls, and cures allies cond, but not yours. Really, dont use this. there is a better option to do each of those things alone, elsewhere.
EG4 is .8 per tick for 5s. 6ticks total, first is instant.

So, what? EG2 and EG4 scale very well with direct damage. very. EG1 is ok direct, and great cond. Most of your damage will be direct with the EG. however, since the main attack is a cond based one, Cond is viable really.
Toolbelt and EG 5 obviously scale with +healing.

Rifled barrels. Changes everything.
It says it adds range. and it does… but thats not all.
EG1 is 1s weakness and 4s bleed normally.
With rifled barrels it becomes 3s weakness, and 3s bleed. 1200 range.
So it adds 300 range, adds 2 s weakness, and reduces the bleed to 3s. So it will do LESS damage with rifled barrels. The extra range however, may make up for it. (plus what it does for EG2)
EG2 3s cripple, 3s swiftness. 8s cd.
With rifled barrels the tooltip will SAY 5s cripple, 5s swiftness. however, this does not occur. it is still 3s. The big change aside from 1200 range, is the CD however, does become 5s. Which is a very large buff to direct damage. EG with rifled barrels is a significant ranged burst weapon.
There are tooltip bugs with the rest of the skills and rifled barrels as well, but no more function changes.

direct damage good and bad. +15% trait is obviously the largest trait. Rifles get 10, grenades get 10, many others get nothing. So that 15% is a significant buff to EG damage, as well has high up time on the bleed for the firearms trait. however, EG is still chained to the kit weapon damage. 920 average. while a rifle is that 1095 average.
So an EG 2 that hits at .75 twice, gaining that +15%, 5% vs bleeding, etc, sounds like it should hit super hard. hits.. good, but not omg hard. A rifle auto attack is competitive due to the base higher weapon damage. Its just naturally 17% stronger.

Acid bath problem. Acid bath hits like a ton of bricks. its a lavafont. (2kx6 is not uncommon for it)The main problem is the leap back is not tied with a CC Break or evade like other similar moves. Play with it, and you will find yourself using it, and not going anywhere more often then you would like. Its extremely unreliable.

Anymras.5729:

I think this should likewise be applied to turret detonations and rocket explosions – and any other trait saying “Explosions” without specifying a source should also affect Pistol 1, Turret detonations and Rocket explosions.

i think explosive traits do effect turret detonations. Been awhile since I tried it though, could be misremembering.

Personally?

Gnomoria, path of exile, LoL,
war, theif alts…

Hey, beauty of GW2, is you don’t have to feel so chained to the game. you aren’t paying a sub. want to take a break? do it.

Arcane is pretty much required for elem. it is a design flaw as well. they do have something to complain about.
Conjures are still weak even with stat addition.

Not really a relevant issue though. everyone has problems of one kind.
being viable/strong because of a single or select OP moves isn’t really any better, then not being viable. Either way, it needs attention.

It should.

should try it and see how that feels in play.

I have a mesmer, thief, ranger, elem, warrior, and engineer.

Cond damage uses the same formula it has since beta.
The damage calc is the same for everyone.
Cond damage is ticked off at the first full second for all professions.

Most skills that deal condition damage, also deal direct damage. is that what you are getting at?
well, yeah? shrapnel grenade, blunderbuss, explosive shot, pdv, static shot, blowtorch, automatic fire, rocket turret, prybar, firebomb, concbomb, flame turret, throw naplam, rocket kick, tranq dart.
all of these deal damage, and apply conditions.

fumigate. is in its own category of being tied with incendiary ammo as the worst skill in the game. Someone missplaced a decimal on that skill coeff I think.

Engi skills that dont. box of nails. Napalm. Incendiary ammo.

Flash, and poison didn’t but now do.

so 3 skills only apply conditions.
What are you talking about man?

Sits around 300 iirc.
outright breaks elixir U. one of the walls won’t spawn with it. Smokescreen iirc. Could be mistaken though.

Cond damage was not nerfed after release.
The damage calc is the same for everyone.
con damage is ticked off at the first full second for all professions.

RaynStargaze.6510:

Casia.4281:

Is it? elixir gun 2. 4 target bouncing.
Elixir gun 3. aoe (ok its terrible and should never be used)
Elixir gun 4. aoe. and very high damage.
Elixir gun 5. aoe heal.
Now, I’ll give you your auto attack is by far your main attack. but 4 out of 5 EG skills are aoe.

2 never hits – ever
3 is bugged
4 is an aoe field with 5 sec duration – staying in that is like standing still in front of an scepter/dagger ele while he is unloading his burst on you (only difference that ele burst is actually good)
5 lol

Eg 4 is a 5s duration ticks 6 times. (first is instant.) .85/tick scaling. 5.1 skill coeff, on a target that stayed in it. If you can’t figure out a way to make a target stay in that damage, then thats on you. (seige, downed, nets, etc) In an Eg power build. think 2k per tick. Its a lava font.

The assertion was, that FT is aoe. So is pretty much every weapon we have.

That weapon damage issue is a major factor.
at face value, you might be sitting there and saying. hey .69s FT vs .836 rifle isn’t THAT much. whats the big deal. the burn makes up for it!

rifle 1205 max damage, and 1095 average.
.65skill coeff. x 1095weapon x 2500 power/2600 armor= 684/hit x 10% rifle mod 753/hit, 3 hits in 2.4s =2258

FT 969 max, 920 average.
1.5coef x 920 × 2500/2600=1327 over 2.5s. x 15% deadly mix = 1526
thats 48%more average damage on rifle 1. A 400 damage burn doesn’t make up for it.

Then when we add vul, 5% damage, 10% scholar, or 5% rage/str, 5% sigil, crit damage, that static burn falls farther and farther behind.
400 burn stays 400, while that 2258 damage becomes 4000 damage with crit, etc.

And this was all just comparing to other engi weapons.

As others stated, compare to greatsword war, or axe, etc. FT falls WAY behind.

Its possible the burn is bugged. 1 1s burn at the end of 2.5s is kindof terrible.
+duration effectively not working on it, is a real problem. as you need +100% cond duration to get any benefit. FT can’t stack duration on itself, due to that 1s on 2.5s . Other sources of burn can aide with that admittedly. Napalm, rocketboots, incind ammo, 10 in explosives incind powder.

Naplam also with 1 s burns. haha.

Incindary ammo. 60s CD for 3 single target burns. lol. wow so bad.

For clarity.

Kit weapon damage:
872-969, 920 average. compare that to your rifle or pistols.
which are 1095, and 969 average respectively.

flame thrower 1
1.5 skill coeff, over 2.5s 10 hits 10 hits over 2.5s is 4 hits/s, not 5.
1 s burn at the end. (burn damage is dealt after the tick, meaning, that burn is applied 3.5s after you start the channel)

FT2 is .75 scaling on the ball, and 1.75 on the blast. 240 aoe. Good. but the main issue is the blast up and vanishing on occasion.

Traits.
+15% damage trait. That is unique to it and EG. 5% to bleeding target.
At 10 hits per 2.5s, that is a good sharpshooter application rate. although it should be noted. grenades are 9 hits per 2.4, pistol is 3,6, or 9 per 2.4 depending on the coated bullets double and triple hitting. rifle is 3 per 2.5. disclosing addition hits such as throw wrench, discharge, etc. (in short, that 10 hits is not nearly as impressive as it sounds)
Juggernaut. unquestionably good. (save it forces you to stay in FT)

1.5 coeff over 2.5s is .6/second.
Compared to rifle 1’s, .65/shot, which is .76/second. .41/s pistol 1. (which yes, is really weak without coated bullets, but becomes .82 with double hits. that is a whole other topic of complaints) Grenades without grenadier, .78/s. 1.16/s with.
Bombs, 1.47/s. Toolkit. .94/.94/1.75. (.85s/.85s/1s attack speed.) EG is .47/s
These are base coeffs, without traits added, save coated bullets and grenadier which greatly change the mechanics.
Most damage modifiers are universal. the 5% to bleeding targets, rifle, pistol, flamethrower, EG all make use of that. so I can drop that from the equation when comparing. However, FT has 15% damage, rifle 10% damage, grenades 10%, eg 15%.
we can then increase that FT by 15%.
FT .69/s. (rifle .836) EG .54/s

EG is the only weapon lower.
Burns and bleeds. 328+(.25*cond) burn, and 42.5+ (.05*cond) bleed
1s burn per 2.5s 40% uptime, and thus 131+(.1*cond) per second
pistol 2s bleed, applied at .85s. 85+(.1*cond)/shot. or 100+*.1176*cond) per second. (ok thats a weird way to put it. )
EG 1 4 or 3s bleed. 127.5+(.15*cond) per shot at 3s, and 170+(.2*cond)per shot at 4s.
Simply put both EG and Pistol apply more cond via bleeds then FT1 does via burn. and that is without coated bullets. both are single target cond however, vs FT1 aoe burn.

Deified.7520:

I was playing around with the T3 FT buff under firearms where you gain 200 toughness and 15 secs of might every 3 seconds, i found that it capped itself at 20seconds. It wouldn’t go above this number, despite it saying that its supposed to get 15 seconds of might. Is this a glitch? meant for? Am i just not understanding something?

1 stack of might every 3s, 15s duration. gives you 5 stacks of might.
Each stack is independent. the first one drops off, after 15s. If you have any + boon duration, you will see it tick 6, then drop back down to 5 after a bit. IF you have lots of + duration, you can get up to 6/7.

NaturalPortman.9562:

Casia.4281:

NaturalPortman.9562:

Urrelles.4018:

I keep trying to go back to flamethrower, in hopes that I was just ignorant of some obvious build to make it viable, only to find myself disappointed by the unreliable damage and impossibility to hit targets during PvP.

What adds salt to the wound is the fact that my Elixir gun does slightly more damage than the FT. Just auto attackign with the Elixir gun will constantly stack a bleed on my target that just gets worst and worst the longer I shoot, then add in the chem spray to layer even more debuffs…………the FT is just garbage when a debuffing / healing gun is doing greater damage numbers than it!!

Why do you guys compare everything in terms of numbers? You forget that the FT is aoe, has a aoe interupt, and a aoe blind.

are you saying our other kits/weapons don’t?

Pistol. aoe attack, aoe poison, aoe blind, aoe confuse. aoe immobilize/cripple.
Rifle. linear aoe.
single target immobalize. aoe interrupt/kb. can also be traited to aoe blind on crits.
grenade. aoe blind, aoe chill, aoe poison.
bomb. aoe kb, aoe blind, aoe confuse.

Nearly all our skills are aoe. Its hard to find one that isn’t.
We also have lots of blinds.

You basically said elixir gun is better than the flamethrower because it does more damage, but elixir gun for the most part is single target.

Is it? elixir gun 2. 4 target bouncing.
Elixir gun 3. aoe (ok its terrible and should never be used)
Elixir gun 4. aoe. and very high damage.
Elixir gun 5. aoe heal.

Now, I’ll give you your auto attack is by far your main attack. but 4 out of 5 EG skills are aoe.

Lanny.6987:

For every 20 condition damage
+1 bleed
+2 poison
+3 confusion
+5 burn

This is only partially accurate.

Durations per application matter. and in some cases how many applications per.

Bleeds for example need to be counted per application as they stack.
1 pistol shot is a 2s bleed. this is then 2 damage per 20 condition, per shot.

no. at least my testing in mist doesnt.

you need 50% duration to get one more tick on pistol 1.
33% for sharpshooter

PDV is 100% uptime on a sustained target already. However + duration would effect if you swap targets, or they run away, etc.

+duration is defiantly more powerful then + cond damage in a pistol cond damage build early.
The 40% food is pretty huge of course. Probably a larger gain then the 100power, 70 prec food is for a DD build.

I fail to see how cond can even come close to power builds in wvw though.

NaturalPortman.9562:

Urrelles.4018:

I keep trying to go back to flamethrower, in hopes that I was just ignorant of some obvious build to make it viable, only to find myself disappointed by the unreliable damage and impossibility to hit targets during PvP.

What adds salt to the wound is the fact that my Elixir gun does slightly more damage than the FT. Just auto attackign with the Elixir gun will constantly stack a bleed on my target that just gets worst and worst the longer I shoot, then add in the chem spray to layer even more debuffs…………the FT is just garbage when a debuffing / healing gun is doing greater damage numbers than it!!

Why do you guys compare everything in terms of numbers? You forget that the FT is aoe, has a aoe interupt, and a aoe blind.

are you saying our other kits/weapons don’t?

Pistol. aoe attack, aoe poison, aoe blind, aoe confuse. aoe immobilize/cripple.
Rifle. linear aoe.
single target immobalize. aoe interrupt/kb. can also be traited to aoe blind on crits.
grenade. aoe blind, aoe chill, aoe poison.
bomb. aoe kb, aoe blind, aoe confuse.

Nearly all our skills are aoe. Its hard to find one that isn’t.
We also have lots of blinds.

that is a problem as well.

If FF was supposed to be “beefier”, to make up for its low damage, it still needs a bit more.

smoke vent being a stun breaker perhaps. No kit having a stun break is a limit to the profession.

the power vs cond thing.

everything scales better with power. everything.
But, it is a fairly complicated question.

spvp, that means less. in wvw/pve that power/crit etc scales so much more is pretty important when you are talking about 20k kill shots, and 15k wrench/burst builds vs 2600 armor targets. A burn ticking for 700 is nothing compared to getting hit for 20k instantly. spvp however, you don’t have 200% crit damage, 3000 power, and 80% crit chance. stats are capped much lower. direct damage cant get out of control with that multiple front scaling. cond has its place.

Nothing really wrong with scaling off both. focus on one, and the other is a bonus. might gives power and cond. works great for firearms, given its prec. anyway.