Guild Wars 2

Also, you can move while chucking grenades and grenade kit only takes up a utility skill spot, allowing you to take supply drop. Grenade kit has no cooldown, you can bust it out whenever you want. Thematically, its stupid that your character can throw grenades as far as your mortar tube can shoot. The mortar just looks silly only being able to shoot a few paces.

But if its a balance issue that keeps Anet from buffing the range on mortar, well first off I think engineers need some big love to catch up to the rest of the professions. I’d say its hard to predict how balance would be affected, so I hope Anet buffs the range to something like 2000 unbuffed and 2500 with both traits, and see how it goes. But if the plan is to keep mortar so underpowered that it is never used, then the real issue was that it was a horribly designed ability in the first place and should just be removed and replaced with something that engineers can actually use.

I’ve used bomb kit extensively. The biggest issue with it is the way that bombs are just placed at your feet. First off, this is thematically ridiculous. Your character is just standing in these explosions and it doesn’t look right at all. It isn’t fun either.

But in terms of functionality, in PvE bomb builds generally make your character pretty squishy which is horrible because you need to be right in the middle of the fray to use the bombs. In PvP bombs are a joke. The kit is used for trolling people with Big Ol Bomb, and for the number 4 ability, smoke bomb. Bombs really need a short tossing distance, much less than grenades, and they would become much more usable in all game modes. Also using the kit wouldn’t look so stupid, with your character standing in the middle of explosion after explosion.

If you haven’t seen this skill in action, and I suspect many haven’t since engineers never use it, I will explain how it works to you.

You press the 0 key and use your long cooldown elite skill, Mortar, which places a mortar tube at your feet. This object is immovable and unrepairable. While manning it, you cannot move or use any other skill such as heals, utility skills, or toolbelt skills. The first time you man the tube, you will be immediately struck by how short the range is. It has a range of just 1400. This can be buffed to 1500 with the trait “Rifled Turret Barrels” but the trait “Elite Supplies” has no effect despite saying that it increases the range of Mortar in the tooltip. So the highest range you can achieve with this ability is 1500, which is also the range at which you can throw grenades and rangers can shoot longbows. Of course grenade engineers and longbow rangers can move while doing this and they don’t have to use an elite skill to match the range of your mortar. Other classes that don’t have weapons with range of 1500 only have to dodge roll towards you and they are close enough to hit you and your tube.

The first time an enemy attacks your tube you will be shocked at how quickly it dies. 3 attacks from a Ranger’s longbow are enough to take it out.

For an elite skill that immobilizes you, has short range and is easily destroyed by a handful of basic attacks, you would expect the damage to be great. But sadly this is not the case either. The damage of the abilities would be significant if the range was doubled. But when you consider that the average mortar tube lasts less than 10 seconds before it is destroyed or you are killed, you only have time for a few shots. When you shoot, a giant red circle appears on the ground and your enemies scatter, often dodge rolling towards you which not only nullifies the damage but puts them close enough to shoot your tube. Dodge rolling isn’t even necessary however because the travel time of the mortar rounds is ridiculously slow. Enemies that are crippled can easily walk out of the AoE. If you are lucky enough to land a shot that does damage, congratulations! You have taken about 5-10% of the average enemies hp with the #1 skill, and about 15% with the number 5 skill.

As far as traits go, the mortar traits are in the least convenient location, the inventions tree. If you want to get the most out of the 2-3 rounds you can launch before your tube is destroyed or you are killed, you want to build for direct damage glass cannon. Unfortunately for you, the important mortar traits are in the 2nd and 3rd tier of a purely defensive line which gives you toughness and healing. At this point, the trait Elite Supplies doesn’t even work on mortar, and Rifled Turret Barrels only increases the range from 1400-1500. So since the traits are so awful you are probably better off skipping them and spending all your points in explosives, firearms, or tools for bigger damage.

There are a few reasons, aside from how awful the skill is, why engineers don’t use mortar. One is that the grenade kit has the same range as mortar, does better damage, and allows you to move while attacking. The other is that by taking mortar you aren’t taking Supply Drop, which is amazing in many ways, or Elixir X which is engineers only source of stability. So the opportunity cost of taking Mortar is very high.

Mortar needs immediate attention, Anet. Please give substantial buffs to the range or just remove the skill and give us something we can use, like a suit of power armor or a robotic pet which I see requested frequently in this forum.

EDIT: Thanks to DootmasterX and Karast for helping formulate an idea that seems like a winner. Instead of being a destructable object that is placed and can never be moved, make Mortar in to an actual kit that behaves the same as any other kit except you are immobile while using it. With this setup it would only need minor range buffs and maybe a bit more damage on #1 to be competitive with Grenade Kit and Supply Drop. But heck, I would take a Mortar Kit as is and let the devs fine tune the range and damage later. This would also make it viable in PvE, maybe even sPvP. I don’t see how this would take too much reprogramming from the devs that are surely very busy, so it seems a realistic request on that front as well. Whaddya guys think?

1.) The toolbelt is a great class mechanic
2.) Overcharge shot
3.) The look of the flame thrower and elixir gun kit is great, and I can’t wait for these kits to not suck
4.) Big ol bomb
5.) The stat combo’s in our trait trees are perfect like ‘Power + Condition Duration’ or ‘Toughness + Healing’, these just seem to go together well.
6.) Permanent swiftness

It doesn’t seem like turret focused builds work at all in any game mode.

1.) Mortar is the worst elite skill in the game
2.) Mortar is the worst elite skill in the game
3.) Wish I had a golem suit like the asura elite skill, or at least a summonable robotic themed companion.
4.) Kits don’t scale with weapon power or proc weapon sigils
5.) Turrets plagued with bugs

Deployable turrets only effects Rocket Turret and Healing Turret in PvE and WvW. Thumper, Rifle, Flame, and Net turrets are not affected.

Also, my tooltips aren’t showing an increased range or damage from the trait Rifled Turret Barrels. I haven’t tested this to see if its just an inaccurate tooltip or if the trait really doesn’t do anything except add 100 range to Mortar.

Mortar range is not increased by the trait Elite Supplies, which states in the tooltip that it increases the range of mortar.

Hard to have discussions about balance when half my traits have tooltips that are misleading or just plain wrong, and my kits don’t benefit from weapon damage or sigils. Engineer got some bug fixes this time, but still needs more, ESPECIALLY THE SCALING OF KIT DAMAGE WITH WEAPON DAMAGE OMG HOW IS THAT STILL NOT FIXED. Once things are working as intended we can talk about balance.

There is counter play to this tactic. If you see them throw it down, you can try knocking them out of its AoE before downing them (engineers have only one ability that gives stability and its an elite skill nobody uses). Also if you do down them in the AoE of a thrown elixir R, you should attack them with damaging abilities instead of trying to finish them. The elixir refills their downed HP and you want to keep them downed until the 5second duration of the elixir has finished.