Guild Wars 2

Full Berserker/Assassin mix is still best for PvE.

Celestial seems to still be ideal in my view for WvW roaming. I don’t play engineer in zergs so I cannot comment there.

displacedTitan.6897:

So after a week I think its pretty obvious that Engineers are in a bad spot. We got basically nothing from this patch powerlevel wise while everyone else got huge buffs. Being forced into Nades/TK/Elixer S just to survive is not fun at all.

ANet messed up really hard for Engi this patch. I guess its time to move on to another profession for awhile until Engineer gets some love or the broken professions are toned down. Also why has it been a week and there are no major bug fixes or burning nerfs?

They need more than one week of feedback to make the most informed decisions. A lot of things definitely need adjustment, but I wouldn’t expect something until the end of this week at the earliest.

Remember that this a B2P title, and that they’re working on the expansion. But they have acknowledged there are problems: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Things-we-know/first

My guild killed Tequatl with 14:11 remaining on the clock yesterday with 50 of us on guardians. This patch balance is a huge shake-up with obvious problems. They’ll get fixed, but only on a timeline that doesn’t impact the expansion’s own.

I think this just depends what your MMR is at. I’m not a professional level player at all; I’m a PvX player that dabbles in every area of the game, but I have been playing the game since launch and done a pretty fair job of it, so I am regularly tossed into matches against tournament-grade players. This is what I’ve found:

FT/EG with its stability and Firearm’s better non-GK sustained damage (High Caliber is huge for Pry Bar and Jump Shot) means longer lasting fights are preferential; I handle necromancers, warriors, rangers, and elementalists pretty well with it, actually. But I’ve found that it gets countered hard by any type of burst damage or focus fire. I mean really, think about it: Juggernaut doesn’t have its additional toughness any longer, and the Elixir Gun offers Super Elixir and nothing else.

My only real defense against mesmer/thief burst is dropping Flash Shell for blinds or blasting Poison Shell for weakness, which is usually enough to hold them off for 4-5 seconds where they then reset and go again. It’s just a stopgap, not a counter.

Gear Shield is by and far the best block skill in the game, and it’s on a cooldown shorter Steal, meaning you can often rely on it to be there when it needs to be; it’s why we’ve often been for so long such a strong counter against thieves, nevermind all the AoE we have.

Elixir S is, in my opinion, our only real protection against mesmers. With how many stunlock builds are floating around, you really just can’t expect them to let you drop your Elixir Shell and Orbital Strike/Flame Blast/Acid Bomb/Jump Shot/Magnetic Inversion/Whatever it uninterrupted. You need something that’s going to give you as close to a reset as possible, and Toss Elixir S with HGH has long enough of a duration that makes it somewhat viable; the Elixir Gun is a team support kit by design. And while it was really good for a few months there due to how strong Acid Bomb and Super Elixir are with Celestial in 1v1 situations, I think the ground has more than been made up by Berserker amulets being reintroduced coinciding the Celestial amulet’s nerf.

Anyone who plays a lot more PvP than I is more than welcome to refute any of these statements, but this is just what it feels like to me right now. The only way I think one could find a middle ground with Celestial is running either the Flamethrower by itself or the Bomb Kit with Tool Kit and Elixir S … but neither of these kits individually cover the utility, range, or damage of the Grenade Kit—just as Chaith said above.

It’s tough right now. I see where ArenaNet wants the engineer, where we have to choose between burst and sustain, but sustain builds end up relying on the same skills that make burst specs viable, leaving sustain builds somewhat lackluster.

Aidan Eighthrain.8612:

AED + AMR hasn’t improved. Truth is it’s an even bigger gamble than ever this days.

Some of the (very effectives) actual counters :

• Any 5k+ damage skill (Backstab, Eviscerate, Fire Grab,…)
• Condi & CC builds (Guard & Necro mainly)
• Simply use CC or disengage before 25% HP when the buzz sound triggers.

AMR used to have a 90 second cooldown. It absolutely has been improved.

It needs to be scaled back to like a 25 second cooldown. Keep it shorter than AED’s base CD, but 10 seconds is absurd. Sounds like a band-aid they put on our class to mitigate some of the huge burst other classes received.

After spending tonight tinkering with FT/EG, I’ve honestly come to the conclusion that a build needs both Tool Kit and Elixir S to be effective right now with how much burst damage is out there.

I find this very frustrating, because it’s just a change or two away from being competitive with the Grenade Kit. I’ll try and come back to it after ArenaNet has adjusted some values.

The Bomb Kit might be more successful, and with burning and confusion it more reliably stacks conditions to make use of Celestial, but I have a feeling I’ll see similar results.

I was hoping people would keep this on the DL. It probably is going to get nerfed.

Good to know. Thanks for the insight.

Chaith.8256:

Next point, don’t 1v1 any duel oriented professions. Absolutely no Cele Eles, Necros, Non-Power Rangers. It’s devastatingly average at 1v1s and there are many exceptional 1v1 builds.

If you want to 1v1 delete your Engi or pray to Grouch. I mean, Cele Engi beats lots of things, but just can’t hang with the real 1v1 Cele professions anymore.

Confirms some of my own fears. I have a pretty awful time against necros and eles right now. Have you tried anything not using the Grenade Kit yet?

I’ve found I’ve had mixed results with the Bomb Kit and with FT/EG HGH, but found FT/EG very effective in sustained team fights. Given what you just said about engineer veering more toward that role, I was wondering if you’ve dabbled with it or any alternatives at all.

Chaith.8256:

Haha.

I do really like the current Engineer build that I’ve arrived at. It’s an expert teamfight carry, and using Moa Toss, it’s really anti-Rampage warrior, Necro, even Stoneheart Ele, which means it’s simply a huge counter pick. Huge cleave, utility (nullify Death Shroud, Stone Heart, Rampage), great combat medic with a transform, double invuln & many stealth.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Z70;2cPVg0u53Ukw0;9;4ilm;0037146136;4IN0;3F-03F-03a0d

I notice you’re not running Backpack Generator. I was wondering myself if the trait was really worth taking any longer due to how strong condition damage is these days.

My only concern is that it might lock you into invulnerability with burning damage still ticking on you; do you find this to be a problem often? Or is this something you deal with anyway simply to get around mesmer burst?

Also, what would you say are your toughest match-ups 1v1 with this spec? And have you given up on Celestial with Incendiary Powder moved to Firearms?

Rezzet.3614:

the fields themselves are great i admit, what i hate is tht the mortar kit is built upon spamming projectile finisher auto attack with said fields but most of those finisher effects only last 1-2 seconds except regen wich lasts 3 seconds i think so as far as finishers go the only useful projectile finisher is the condi cleanse and probably glue gunk confusion

what exactly justtifies the 28% damage nerf to begin with
as well as rifle not getting 1200 range baseline

welp i guess i ll dump my remaining gold in serker gear and find out .

You can’t really judge the worthiness of a kit by its auto attack, though. The Tool Kit has probably the worst auto-attack in the entire game. It swings like a mace but without the weakness or symbol that warrior and guardian have, and with its final hit being single-target.

It’s still a commonly taken utility skill in PvP and WvW given what Pry Bar, Gear Shield, Box of Nails, and Magnet provide. You have to look at Mortar Kit similarly. You have to look at every kit similarly. Kit engineer builds have always been balanced around a hybrid, “greater than the sum of its parts” mindset, which is why I’ve been baffled that the community has taken this Mortar Kit vs. Grenade Kit stance when you can obviously just use both of them.

And if it’s a matter of getting away from the Grenade Kit, paired with the FT/EG and its two blast finishers, or the Bomb Kit and its blast finisher and fire field, it is absolutely worth using, and slots really well into general rotations. But it has to be used as a
sustain/support kit and not a DPS kit. Burst builds are probably better off running Elixir X with Rampage—especially if you’re slotted into Tools and Alchemy and maximizing that Moa.

But when you begin to look at things that way, the Mortar Shot is really kind of irrelevant, and should be used primarily for gap pressure, or if only that. I don’t think the Mortar Kit was ever intended to be camped. Realistically, only the Grenade Kit and Flamethrower have ever been designed to be camped.

Mercanus.3417:

yep aware of that, it is nice which is why i thought of confusion on the flash shell.

Kind of like a pulsing Static Shot? It would be interesting.

Mercanus.3417:

I’ll take bugfixes first for sure though I would like to see a little more condi application with mortar is all doesn’t need to be burning necessarily. Maybe confusion on flash? maybe?

You can get an ethereal field from Streamlined Kits. Depending on the finisher these give confusion or Chaos Armor.

Rezzet.3614:

it is a weapon Devoted to Combo FIelds
that right there brings a lot of issues specially when the auto attack got nerfed the reasons being:

Field Effects have extremely short duration wich basically makes most of the kit useless as the only worthwhile field effect is condi cleanse

Are you kidding? It has by and far the longest water field we’ve ever had, and gives us the best sustained blind we’ve ever had as well.

Smoke Bomb’s blinds only lasted three seconds for a four second field duration, whereas Flash Shell’s blind lasts five seconds for a six second field duration with Siege Rounds. It can also be fired from 1500 range, which cannot be overstated.

I also think it cannot be overstated that most engineer builds have access to leaps and blast finishers beyond the Mortar Kit itself, which results in Elixir Shell being effectively our best healing skill.

The only thing it lacks is condition cleanse, which you can get out of Flash Shell.

Rezzet.3614:

Projectile combo finisher activates when it goes through players not on the projectile impact wich means ontop of your projectile being somewhat slow and predicable you have to aim beyond your actual target wich makes the projectile even harder to land than it is

This has already been noted and discussed, and I imagine that ArenaNet is working on a solution with this. I personally think the most elegant solution would be to change its attack from a spammable projectile finisher to a blast, leap, or whirl finisher on a 4-5 second cooldown; projectile finishers have always been the least understood by the majority of the community, and very few engineers especially understand how the condition cleanse works with light fields despite having access to Super Elixir and Throw Wrench since launch.

The kit is still worth taking for the above reasons if team support is your objective.

Rezzet.3614:

the kit’s damage is just too low it is meant to be our Elite kit yet its damage is on par with rifle auto attack, and even the Orbital strike is outperformed by rifle turret, rocket turret,throw wrench , launch battering ram skills and thats excluding their effectiveness on SD builds .

I don’t think it’s appropriate to compare damage values between elite and utility skills. Supply Crate does very little if any damage now that base burning damage is no longer 328 but 131. Supply Crate was generally taken for the stun, immobilize, and blast finisher. Why can’t Mortar Kit be taken for similar supportive/CC reasons with its blind, chill, water field, poison field, and 1-2 blast finisher(s)?

Rezzet.3614:

if anything it needs a 50% AA damage buff simply because the projectile is so slow and hard to land they are skill shots i dont see why they have to be weaker than ranger’s longbow .

It’s about opportunity cost. A ranger has to spec and trait for the longbow to be effective. An engineer can just slot Mortar Kit and have access to 1500 range. And really, unless you’re running conditions, what are you truthfully giving up taking Mortar Kit over Supply Crate or Elixir X?

Rampage is really good, and the new Toss Elixir X effect is really nice, but there are plenty of builds floating around that don’t use Elixir X and are plenty competitive and more than effective; truthfully the choice between Elixir X and Mortar Kit is a question between building for burst or sustain—they’re both viable, and in many respects better than Supply Crate currently for a lot of builds.

Rezzet.3614:

as it stands the mortar is just a giant dissapointing reminder to engineers that grenades got nerfed and ironically grenades are still the superior kit choice.

I think the Grenade Kit is very strong still, but a lot of that is based around the Grenade Barrage and double damage bugs that are inflating its damage values far higher than what is actually intended.

You also have to acknowledge that Grenade Kit builds have always been heavily countered by heavy CC and conditions—both of which got significantly buffed in this patch. It’s in a worse place than it was pre-patch, and that’s not even talking about the 900 range nerf or the “loss” of Incendiary Powder.

I spent most of this weekend trying out a lot of different builds, many of which had nothing to do with the Grenade Kit or had a single point in Explosives. Teldo’s condition bombs build is extremely effective, and I’ve also found that FT/EG HGH is probably the best Celestial spec on the table right now.

I think given time you’ll see that the Mortar Kit is plenty viable if desiring a sustain/bunker build, and will be more commonly used after they fix the projectile finisher. Its damage is irrelevant.

Mercanus.3417:

I was thinking more for it fitting into condi builds with applications of condis rather than its ability to remove condis but that’s neat too I guess.

I think we have enough burning access as it is. I also think putting a fire field and water field in the same slot is unprecedented for good reason.

When they fix Mortar Shot so that it actually cleanses conditions off allies from splash damage, Flash Shell is going to be incredible.

Give it some time.

Dentrius.1274:

Just wanted to add my 2 cents about new build that poped up.

Last night i’ve tried the Five Gauges marauder explo/alch/tools and its amazing.

It really shines in team fights. Great set up for your teams burst, lots of rezzing potential as well as safe-stomping (despite it’s a glassy build I had more succesful rezzes than runing pre pach cele).
Of course you can’t eat a shatter or a backstab like cele, but you have 2x elixir S on a 48sec cd for almost 8sec of invul. as well as 6sec of stealth (sometimes 12sec if you get lucky on kinetic battery), prot injection, reactive lenses and you can even moa defensively. Oh and rampage(50% of the time ofc.) your team fight decider.

And damage. Even without taking bugged grenadier you can still one-two shot someore form a stealth magnet barrage. The near perma fury helps too.

All in all it feels like you are playing a SD build but less squishy and more usefull with the rezzes, stomps and aoe pressure.

I definitely like Marauder with Grenade Kit the best outside of the Celestial FT/EG HGH spec I was trying yesterday. Also agreed on Kinetic Charge. I love that trait.

They just need to fix it so that Detonate Healing Turret doesn’t proc it.

Right. I’ll probably settle with grenades in the end, but I don’t want to get comfortable seeing numbers that aren’t staying and building around it.

I actually had quite a lot of success with HGH.

Honestly after this weekend my confidence in our position has shaken considerably. My last real attempt at Celestial is Firearms/Inventions/Alchemy with FT/EG HGH. I’m going to give this a couple days and if things don’t work out I may just shelve Celestial until they balance things out a bit, or see what other people are running. Right now it just feels too weak and too vulnerable.

I’m trying to avoid using grenades due to the Barrage bug, but it may not be helped.

Supply Crate does less damage than Grenade Kit. Please make it a utility skill.

I’ve taken my fiance to baseball games and have heard roughly the same response. She’s not from America, so she wasn’t raised around the sport. Why are all these dudes in knee-high socks dancing around in those boxes trying to hit the ball? Why is there some guy standing off to the side rubbing his ears and clapping his hands randomly? And why does the runner have to stop running, and when can they keep going?

It’s the case for any game or sport: they’re all learned. Some of them are more transparent than others, but until you pick up a bat and glove, or until you have someone laboriously explain every detail to you, you’re just not going to get it.

displacedTitan.6897:

Its not that Kinetic Battery is bad, its just very clunky to use and its competition for the GM spot in Tools is PERMANENT VIGOR….

Basically if they want you to use this trait they need to buff it massively.

What’s clunky about it? You dodge and then use a toolbelt skill within the next 8 seconds. Rather than just fire stuff off cooldown, it requires you to be more patient so that you fire off a toolbelt twice in a row.

And in the example provided above, it just requires you to be mindful of using Grenade Barrage before you heal. The alternative is simply not blowing up your turret and simply picking it up … which you should do anyway when you can.

With Celestial ammy it gives 2,800+2,800 every 15 seconds when picked up versus 2,800+2,800+1,432 (water blast=1,320+20%HPower) every 20 seconds. That’s 5,600 HP returned every 15 seconds versus 7,032 every 20 seconds or 22,400/minute vs. 21,096/minute.

Late edit: I just tested this and it appears Detonate Healing Turret does proc Kinetic Charge and does not allow you to double water Regenerating Mist. Definitely needs to be fixed. But the trait is still worth using if you accept that limitation.

Sold Out.7625:

nearlight.3064:

Yeah I tried using it, and it was cool, but once grendae barrage is fixed to not take out half of everyones health there will be no reason to use it at all.

Honestly I’d probably take alchemy over tools instead if the non HGH GM options were better, as prot injection and backpack regen are nice. Adrenal Implant, power wrench, and lock on serve me well and complement explosives/inventions nicely in a cele rifle build. I’m still debating on whether or not incendiary powder is still worth it.

No reason to not use a skill that allows you to do -two- grenade barrages? Even two non-broken grenade barrages are incredibly powerful. It’s what the 100nades build of the past was based on.

It’s also kind of really a necessity for medkit users (which is more of a pve thing, to be fair!)

If anything, I think it’ll be the one trait that keeps engineers relevant in PvP after Grenade Barrage is fixed.

displacedTitan.6897:

You just said you crutch on Grenade Barrage to win, WHICH IS CURRENTLY BUGGED TO DO LITERALLY DOUBLE DAMAGE.

If we want to get specific, I actually spend more time using the Alchemy variant since it provides much better team support, which is probably where engineers are going to end up in this meta.

I also spent a couple hours messing around with Teldo’s build he posted today, winning the vast majority of the matches I played: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38Dz2TUfCu0

Doesn’t overly rely on burning, nor does it use the Grenade Kit.

zaragoz.6351:

Instead you take tools for a celestial build.. why?

Kinetic Battery. It’s pretty nice being able to double blast a water field to heal myself up and then double blast a poison field to negate burst. It’s also pretty nice being able to throw two Grenade Barrages, especially with how strong it is. It’s literally a new 100nades build, but without Alchemy you’re too squishy to go Berserker/Marauder.

It’s a skillshot, and you really have to re-orient your rotations around having Grenade Barrage ready, but I win most of my 1v1s with that spec—more than I do any other that I’ve tried.

It just feels like everyone’s pretty negative around here about our changes when our loss of vigor came with a lot of gains elsewhere if you spec for it.

Healing Turret for the blast and team support.

You don’t leave it out. You drop it and pick it up if you don’t need the blast.

I am displeased.

Bacon.4918:

Celestial engineer is mediocre at best now and really doesn’t have a place anymore in my opinion.

I’ve spent this week PvPing with a variety of different builds and have had moderate success going both Rabid and Marauder, but Celestial has always been my preferred playstyle and I find that Explosives/Inventions/Tools or Explosives/Inventions/Alchemy suits Celestial perfectly.

Until they go and add Zealot stats to PvP, Celestial will always have a role.

Random Wax Orc.7695:

Isn’t Ranger’s best ranged option also its best damage option? What about Engineer is allowed and not allowed to be best? and Why?

Again, our build diversity across the entire game has been crippled since launch by the very fact that the Grenade Kit offered maximum DPS alongside maximum range. The ranger longbow does not offer maximum DPS; that would go to their sword. The longbow also primarily dishes out single-target damage, making it pretty terrible for PvE.

The “meta” for ranger, as far as PvE is concerned, has usually extended to sword/x with greatsword. And while the longbow is really good for PvP, condition builds have been just as good in the past if not better at times. And then you had spirit rangers…

For engineer, since launch, it’s always been about the Grenade Kit. For everything. For every situation. Optimal. Always best. PvE. PvP. WvW. Whatever. And while it still outperforms the Bomb Kit in damage due to vulnerability stacking, it is no longer our maximum range option, and there are several builds floating around in the Mists that don’t use it because of other situational buffs to kits. As I said already, when the dust settles, we will have more options than we had pre-patch, and part of that is due to the Mortar Kit’s existence.

Random Wax Orc.7695:

As I keep saying, Mortar #1 is also easiest to avoid. So it was never the best damage option. Higher damage helps balance out the difficulty in connecting with Mortar #1. From max range, an enemy can fairly easily close to melee distance without being hit once by Mortar #1, without using special skills.

It’s called leading your shots. Engineers have been doing this with grenades since 2012.

Random Wax Orc.7695:

What is the point of a mere blast finisher when the target will almost never be in the same AoE circle for two slow attacks?

What’s the point?

PvP and WvW are built around defending and attacking set points on the map. Drop your poison field and blast it twice on the corner a zerg is stacking. Drop your water field and blast it twice on the point you’re defending.

I mean seriously. If you cannot figure out the practical applications of having two blast finishers and a six second water field I don’t know what else there is to talk about. We are veering toward “L2P” territory.

Random Wax Orc.7695:

The Engineer class is not an exclusive club for meta only players.

I never said it was.

Random Wax Orc.7695:

Saying A “needs to be toned down” or B is “useless and should be removed” does not serve to invigorate the class.

I disagree. I should be allowed to call out something as legitimately overpowered if I think it is.

Random Wax Orc.7695:

No it isn’t. It is about keeping the Mortar generally useful for everyone.

How is a six second water field not useful to everyone? Or a six second blind field? Or two blast finishers on a 40 second cooldown? Or four blast finishers with Kinetic Battery? Or a light field that, when they finally get it working properly, will cause the #1 skill to cleanse conditions with every shell?

There are plenty of reasons to still use the kit. It just demands that you use other kits if you want to deal maximum damage.

The best ranged option shouldn’t also be our best damage option; this is precisely the trap we have been suffering from for the past three years as engineers. And before they nerfed it, the only auto-attack that was stronger than Mortar Shot was the Bomb Kit.

Random Wax Orc.7695:

My feeling about the matter were not specifically directed at anyone, just at the general tone of what I’ve seen in the forum. That is not an ad hominem… that is a personal impression.

Directing your attention toward the speaker(s) of an argument rather than their actual argument is the very definition of ad hominem.

So just don’t. Thanks.

Manuhell.2759:

Mortar Kit should be the same. It uses up an elite skill slot, it should be worth of that slot.

And it does. Just not in the form of damage.

What you really should be asking yourself is what the Mortar Kit offers compared to other elites.

Random Wax Orc.7695:

I can’t help but feel that this thread, and the Engineer forum in general, is being trolled by people who secretly main other classes.

You really need to stop saying this stuff. Many of the people posting in this thread have been playing the game since launch, and have actively contributed to the meta across all aspects of the game primarily playing the engineer.

The point of contention is this: Some think a 1500 range skill should deal more damage than the Grenade Kit. Others don’t. It’s really that simple. Please leave the ad hominem at the door.

nearlight.3064:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Yes, be very careful with your dodges since wasteful dodging kind of makes Kinetic Battery worthless.

I tried out a variant of your build all night tonight with my guild team and it wrecked face!

I just ran energy/intelligence vamp runes and shrapnel over siege rounds since I felt like I needed the supply crate more than the mortar.

I feel like I may stop using kinetic battery if grenade barrage ever gets fixed, and use adrenal implant instead or take alchemy for more sustain.. but lock on is awsome for screwing over all the mesmers and thieves I fought.

Honestly, I like Kinetic Battery more for extra blast finishers from Orbital Strike than anything. I tend use Grenade Barrage off cooldown, so it’s rarely ready to go when it procs.

Thanks for doing the math on this. Unfortunate that the Jump Shot doesn’t count as an explosion. Must either be bugged or was changed last minute.

Having seen the numbers, I do agree it appears as though the rifle is worse off post-patch.

Yes, be very careful with your dodges since wasteful dodging kind of makes Kinetic Battery worthless.

I don’t know what to tell you then. I used to run FOTM 40 and 50 several times a week. I got pretty used to seeing the same damage values and clear times. The one I did this week was quite different.

Similar to the conversation of the Mortar Kit, you’re welcome to make your own conclusions.

Gern.2978:

No, dont confuse issues. We needed another option other than just grenade kit. Grenade kit didn’t need “scaled back.” That would, and did, only result in a nerf to our DPS (in the case of the changes they ultimately went with, this nerf is to our damage beyond 900 distance, and it’s a big one.)

And now we have one. If you want to deal the most condition damage, the Bomb Kit and Tool Kit are significantly better at it now. Burning is now the prime condition for DPS in the game currently, and the Grenade Kit doesn’t have it. And once they fix Incendiary Ammo so that it applies two stacks of burning three times, rather than one stack of burning, I think the Flamethrower is going to get a lot of use as well with its situational defensive advantages.

Given time, I anticipate that the Grenade Kit will be less and less relied upon in PvP and WvW. For PvE it’ll always be BiS because of the vulnerability stacking, but the relative strength of each kit has never been better.

Gern.2978:

Um, in no way has rifle been given any kind of a buff to make it a replacement for the grenade kit. In fact, they nerfed rifle by removing the traits that increased it’s range and damage.

They adjusted baseline skill damage to coincide with the removal of Rifle Mod, just as they adjusted the baseline radius of bombs to coincide with the removal of Forceful Explosives. (It still says 180 but they are 240. Test it by using a mortar shell with 240 radius and drop a Fire Bomb or Smoke Bomb.)

Jump Shot is now considered an “explosion” as well, so if you’re going up the Explosives tree, Jump Shot deals 10% more damage than it did pre-patch. I was running a FOTM 40 earlier this week and combined crits for over 20K damage. This is on level 82 mobs.

The rifle wasn’t nerfed. It was buffed.

Gern.2978:

I…what? I can’t even wrap my mind around the mental gymnasitcs that have brought you to this conclusion. How does nerfing other kits and weapons, that already under-performed when compared to grenade kit, make them more of a viable option than grenade kit? The changes have done the opposite of this. Grenade is more our best option than ever. And that is sad.

But nothing got nerfed. Bombs still have the best auto-attack and burning access, the Flamethrower is even better at fulfilling its decap bunker role, and the Elixir Gun now can convert conditions into boons and stack might with HGH. And with confusion now ticking over time, Pry Bar does even more damage now. Everything literally got elevated, meanwhile grenades have gotten reduced range in favor of increased velocity. It’s a good change, and makes them more reliable in PvP, but the damage is largely the same aside from Poison Grenade.

They may have not all been buffed according to their damage values, especially as far as the Flamethrower is concerned, but build diversity will be a lot broader after the dust settles than it was before Tuesday. That’s simply a fact.

nearlight.3064:

Could you care to explain it more detail? And what sigils do you use?

Oh, haha. Sorry. I’ve edited the link.

I run Sigil of Intelligence paired with either Generosity, Doom, or Leeching depending on the team comp I’m facing. I haven’t really figured that all out yet, truthfully.

nearlight.3064:

It looks interesting, however I have had a very hard time dropping firearms in my celestial builds, and since explosions is mandatory to have proper grenades It gives me a case of 3 traitline syndrome where I wish I could take every specialization but I can’t.

I had the same problem. It was very difficult to divorce myself from Incendiary Powder; it’s a trait I’ve taken for as long as I can remember in PvP. But somehow the build just works without it—and without vigor, for that matter.

The main problem is that I just wasn’t really impressed with what High Caliber and Skilled Marksman did for my damage. Compared to getting off two Grenade Barrages with Kinetic Charge, or using two Orbital Strikes in two different combo fields, it felt like I was getting less gains traiting for Firearms over Tools—especially when Orbital Strike is traited for two blast finishers; it gives me in one instance 5 seconds of AoE weakness, and shortly afterward a good 2-3K HP returned through blasting my water field.

Bunker Down is, truthfully, in my view, absolutely overpowered. The medpack heals for like 500 health in Celestial, making it far better than Backpack Regenerator with additional damage to go with it. Losing out on Protection Injection hurts, especially against mesmers, but that’s kind of where Lock On comes in. I’ve learned to take a more proactive approach against them, and have found myself more successful because of it than when I traited into Alchemy for more passive sustains. If I get baited into their stunlock I use Elixir S and readjust.

nearlight.3064:

Granted I haven’t really tried kinetic charge or mortar kit yet, I can’t really seem to wrap my head around how to use the mortar efficiently.

I use Mortar for gap pressure from 1000 to 1500 range, and to combo fields with Orbital Strike. My favorites right now are F5ing Poison Gas and Elixir Shell. Five seconds of weakness really hurts mesmer shatter, and between the passive heal and the blast heals, Elixir Shell with Orbital Strike in Celestial heals for over 5K HP. Flash Shell’s light field isn’t getting a lot of use since no one really is using that many whirl and projectile finishers right now (really I just use Throw Wrench in it if anything during team fights), but the blind duration and radius with a one second pulse rate is a serious game changer against necromancers.

It’s not the easiest build to play, but I find myself surviving most 1v1 encounters effectively, with the team-fighting potential still the same as it was pre-patch; it’s good. Maybe not the best out there, but it works for me and my play style. Glass cannon builds were never really my thing.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Z70;2cPVg0l6cQ-x0;9;4ikm;0036157246;4Rs0;3CoF2CoF20n

This has been my most effective build post-patch.

Gern.2978:

If they never intended for mortar to be a damage kit, but instead a support/utility kit, then they should not have reduced grenades to 900 range, and removed our “rifled barrels” trait, thus reducing rifle to 1000 range (not that rifle’s AA was ever really competative for damage anyways.) No matter what logic is used to justify this change, it amounts to a huge unnecessary nerf to engineers at ranges beyond 900.

You say this like all of these changes were made in relationship to one another, but truthfully the changes made to the Grenade Kit and Mortar Kit were done for different, nearly unrelated reasons.

The Grenade Kit needed to be scaled back. Anyone who has been playing Guild Wars 2 since launch has felt the crushing weight of the Grenade Kit. It offered for a long time both the best damage and the best range, basically crippling build diversity in every facet of the game. PvE? Grenade Kit. PvP? Grenade Kit. WvW? Grenade Kit.

When you looked over all the utility skills engineer had, and knew that none of them matched the Grenade Kit, especially back then when spamming #1 was seriously carpal tunnel-inducing, it was very disheartening.

Even though there are guys like Teldo, Koroshi, and Rozbuska that have put out Bomb Kit builds in the past, the Grenade Kit has always been generally accepted as the best option out there. The only thing I could put together that ever came close to it in functionality was the FT/EG combo, which was rendered useless after Juggernaut and Kit Refinement were nerfed back in 2012. And even despite these nerfs I still did what I could to maintain it because I despised the Grenade Kit’s play style and its crushing weight on build diversity. I thought by maintaining FT builds I could establish the lack of diversity we have as a class. In the end I was wrong, but Tuesday’s patch brings a bit of hope for me and a lot of veteran engineers.

With the overhaul of conditions, where confusion and burning actually dish out a lot more damage reliably, we have lessened dependency on the Grenade Kit for PvP and WvW, and with its 900 range outperformed by the Rifle, it no longer has the farthest range either. Now the Grenade Kit is balanced in line with other kits, and I don’t see very many engineers I actually recognize that have been around this block a few times with ArenaNet complaining about any of these moves.

Kit selection has truthfully never been more balanced, and part of that comes in the form of Mortar Kit. We have been asking for an elite kit since the game came out; a lot of us love the functionality of kits, and found the Supply Crate kind of lacking. Before the patch the Mortar Kit was completely outclassed by the Grenade Kit, by both range and damage. It felt kind of stupid that an elite skill should feel weaker than a utility skill. And while the Grenade Kit still does more damage than the Mortar Kit, it has enhanced functionality (in ways I’ve already established) that warrant its slot on your bar over other elites, an does so from a range that the Grenade Kit can’t compete with.

Tuesday’s patch has addressed a lot of complaints and concerns we have had as a community since August 2012: they gave us back the old Juggernaut, they fixed hobo sacks, they brought the Grenade Kit in line, and they’ve buffed Mortar Kit. It’s a collective bundle of changes, but they weren’t all made in relationship to one another. The Flamethrower has been buffed and nerfed over the past three years completely independent of Grenade Kit changes; you really have to try and see the Mortar Kit similarly.

I think most engineers should be happy where we are at, but again, I think it comes down to lack of exposure for newer engineers to builds beyond the Grenade Kit and poor understanding of deeper mechanics that go into the engineer’s design.

We have the most combo fields of any class in the game, and the Mortar Kit is intended to better push that design to the forefront of how the class is played. Figure it out or don’t. I hear mesmers are looking to become the new flavor of the month.

robertul.3679:

Some people just want to roleplay their stupid bomb builds so they say mortar nerf is justified.
Also lol at the “strongest fields”. Except water what strong field? Poison strong field? Ice field strong too amirite?? You can blast for frost aura! Light field? Funny.

Strongest fields are water, fire, smoke. The rest are not strong.

Whirl finishers in light fields will become one of the best counters to the creeping presence of condition builds in sPvP and WvW. They require zero traits or utilities to use. Now, we don’t have whirl finishers ourselves outside of Elixir X (and we can’t take both Mortar and X obviously), but hammer is making a comeback for warriors and guardians still sometimes run with the greatsword.

And blasting poison fields for weakness is arguably the best counter against burst builds we have currently. Protection reduces damage by 33%, whereas weakness reduces half the hits you receive into glancing blows (50% effectiveness) and reduces enemy endurance rates by 50%. Most glass cannon builds depend upon dodging to survive. Stack weakness and they’ll die that much faster.

People are welcome to make their own conclusions, but I’ve had a pretty easy time managing my health pool in the current state of PvP, often going without Alchemy and Inventions because I’ve used the Mortar Kit’s fields to greatly reduce direct damage through blinds and weakness.

Hansgrell.8179:

I do use both phin thats how i know that nades need only make physical contact while on flight to deal damage, where mortar has to splash down and detonate to hit the target, which is why mortar is weaker in this degree. And remember nade is king when it comes to vulner+shrap while the combo fields are nice, imo mortars 1 skill was good for close up pressure, in this case i actually get more out of rifle. And i just cannot classify mortar 1 as an auto attack, i just cant. You have to manually aim it and use its velocity+targs movement to get a bead on your target, where i could just press one and im guaranteed outside of dodges to always get a rifle shot off.

I agree. But I still think the kit is worth taking for the 2-5 skills, and using them regularly. Understand that my angle here is clearing up the argument of the OP:

Gern.2978:

Now there is no reason to use mortar kit at all. The only reason I will even have it equipped is for Orbital strike, and the rare need for 1500 range against a near stationary target.

The purpose of my post was not to claim that the Mortar Kit is worth using over the Grenade Kit, but to establish that the combo fields the Mortar Kit provides are situational game-changers in the hands of an experienced engineer. Celestial builds have gotten significantly stronger with its inclusion, and when everyone grows tired of three-shotting each other, I anticipate that the Mortar Kit will be meta for all power-centric and Celestial builds for reasons stated I above. It further elevates the status of engineer as master controller, and if one were to build for it, could additionally slot in the Elixir Gun for condition conversion for full-on medic builds.

The potential is significant, and it has its place in a burst, bunker, and condition meta, as it offers weakness, condition removal, heals, blind, chill, and poison. Name a spec and it offers something to counter it. With Lock On you can literally reveal thieves from 1500 range away. It will completely redefine the pacing of solo roaming for engineers.

It’s something that will be situationally useful regardless of where the meta goes. And to call it useless just because they nerfed the auto-attack is seriously pearls before swine.

Nilix.2170:

I just did a dungeon last night running Bomb/EG/Elixir B/Mortar running HGH and it was pretty good.

Your might stacks should be covered by warriors. HGH is sub-optimal in group PvE.

ocirne.7915:

Phineas Poe.3018:

ocirne.7915:

zinkz.7045:

This thread is pointless, there is a lot more to balance than DPS, mortar has 1500 range, it also has AOE – chill, heal, blind, posion, plus a waterfield, ice field, poison field, light field, and a blast finsiher.

It does matter for the PvE community, which is a lot more significant than the PvP one.

In PvE you should be running the grenade kit since it stacks vulnerability better. There was no reason to ever use the auto attack before the nerf.

After they bugfix Supply Crate so it actually gives three blasts instead of one on detonation, you’ll end up taking that anyway.

There was a reason, if you’re capped on vuln you should use mortar. And theres a lot more vuln around nowadays.

If you’re capped on vuln, if anything, you should use bombs. They hit harder than Mortar even before the nerf.

Hansgrell.8179:

You say 400 a second is really good, but have you seen condis? that 2800 is easily eaten in just ONE tick, take example guardian burns atm. A guardian can easily get a 12k burn in one tick, 2800 isn’t going to save anyone, i highly doubt it’d even buffer it!

ANet has said they’re examining burning damage and may scale it back. But I do think it’s important to mention that condition removal does exist, and that Sigil of Generosity is really good against guardians since they have so few conditions aside from burning to flip back onto them.

Hansgrell.8179:

and while i agree the poison field+orbital is very fun and very nice to pull off on a burst player, im still going to be switching to nades

Grenade Kit is a utility skill. Mortar Kit is an elite. You can use both, and should. I don’t think the Mortar Kit was designed to be a primary auto-attack so much as additional gap pressure from 1500 range. If they get closer than that, and within range of your grenades, you should be using them instead. I don’t see the problem with this, and aside from combo fields, I think this is what the Mortar Kit was intentionally designed to do—not be this mainstay kit you wield in all situations and ranges.

If anything needs to be done further for the Mortar Kit, it’s fixing the projectile finisher mechanic so that it actually procs when you hit enemies with splash damage.

Manuhell.2759:

People will just forget the mortar and return using grenades and bombs – they do more damage and have “better” fields, as you said yourself.

The Grenade Kit lost its poison field. Your only access to weakness now—which is pretty strong in a burst meta—is either taking the Elixir Gun for Tranquilizer Dart or using Mortar Kit’s poison field instead. Having a poison field that blankets an entire point and be freely blasted by everyone for spreading Weakness and Poison is very strong, especially when you’re not sacrificing any damage: Orbital Strike hits for nearly 2K non-crit per strike, even with a Celestial amulet. Firing off 4K damage to spread 5 seconds of weakness is a fair move in my book.

Light fields within themselves may seem unimpressive, especially when they’re tailored more toward group support than cleansing conditions off yourself (projectiles cleanse allies nearby the target and not yourself), but it spams blind on a one second interval, making a relatively safe stomp against several classes without having to sacrifice a slot for Elixir S, Elixir B, or the Bomb Kit. I will admit guardians and warriors utilize light fields better, because whirl finishers are just mechanically easier to use, but in team-fighting having an AOE blind field that can condition cleanse is going to get a lot of use.

I also don’t think it needs to be overstated how huge it is that we finally have a water field that lasts more than one second. When traited it can last up to six seconds, meaning it actually ticks seven times. It may not cleanse conditions like Healing Rain does, but it heals for a pretty significant amount. It heals for nearly 400 health even in full Berserker gear in PvE; that means you’re getting back close to 2800 health every 30 seconds. The raw power of this in WvW, when it can be fired from 1500 range, is seriously invaluable, especially when you factor in that you can easily F5 immediately after you drop it for two quick blasts for an additional 2.6K health.

In sum, if you pair a traited Orbital Strike with the water field, you will basically be giving yourself back over 5K HP every 40 seconds (34 with Tools) with zero healing power; it’s quite literally a second healing skill slotted into your build.

But clearly, as Gern said, I don’t play engineer. Carry on.

Gern.2978:

I get the feeling you don’t play engi.

lol.

Gern.2978:

Those combo fields are ok, not great, and certainly not the best in the game, just ok.

I’m kind of baffled I have to explain how long we’ve been asking for a water field that lasts longer than 1 second. Water fields are literally the most important combo field in WvW, and having a ticking Poison field that covers an entire point in PvP is absolutely invaluable.

Understand that not everything is balanced around PvE. What the Mortar Kit offers in PvP and WvW for power-centric builds is absolutely incredible, and was legitimately overpowered in its original state.

It has three of the four best combo fields in the game and people are crying that it’s useless because you can’t AFK from 1500 range anymore.

This is why ArenaNet doesn’t comment on these forums. These positions are just unreasonable.

ocirne.7915:

zinkz.7045:

This thread is pointless, there is a lot more to balance than DPS, mortar has 1500 range, it also has AOE – chill, heal, blind, posion, plus a waterfield, ice field, poison field, light field, and a blast finsiher.

It does matter for the PvE community, which is a lot more significant than the PvP one.

In PvE you should be running the grenade kit since it stacks vulnerability better. There was no reason to ever use the auto attack before the nerf.

After they bugfix Supply Crate so it actually gives three blasts instead of one on detonation, you’ll end up taking that anyway.

It’s really quite simple. They introduced a significant power creep without buffing healing skills along with it.

I just don’t understand how you can buff rifle damage, improve tool belt burst damage, and add Orbital Strike without balancing the Healing Turret around these changes.

Casia.4281:

all these posts. no math.
terrible.

untraited:

grenade 1.
.33 coeff. 1 attack/s. 3 grenades. 1017 ascended weapon kit str ave
1007 effective dps.

rifle 1.
.65 coeff. .85 a/s 1150 ascended weapon str ave.
879 effective dps.

Bomb 1.
1.250 coeff. .84 a/s 1017 ascended weapon kit str ave.
1515 effective dps.

current post patch mortar 1.
either .75 or .8 coeff. (testing not fully fleshed out yet..) .8 a/s(sure about this.) 1017 ascended weapon kit str ave.
953 effective dps if .75.
1017 effective dps if .8

If its .8, its still more dps then grenades. if not, just below. higher then rifle 1 still.
And then of course add traits in there. 10% explosions, vul stacking, etc.

I am not sure what the coeff was previously. “28%” suggests it was either 1.05 or 1.1.
Giving an effective dps of either 1335, or 1398. both are pretty ridiculous for a ranged aoe. And would have been 30% more then grenades..

Pretty much.