Guild Wars 2

flamethrower

Manuhell.2759:

Says the one who sees the flamethrower as a tanky weapon, beside having two third of the traits in a precision/condition damage tree and a single defensive skill – smoke vent.
Or all the matter regarding our perma-lol protection (cause we’re being disabled every 5 seconds, according to you).

the kittens go mew mew.

you’re just jealous that i can spend 70 trait points and not have wasted any of them on useless minor traits.

d(`-`d)

“the one who sees the flamethrower as a tanky weapon” also happens to be successful with the flamethrower and doesn’t have problems using it.

your narrow tunnel vision of what a “tank” happens to be is what holds you back. not my problem you don’t know how to tank for your team without having a big immobile boss to spank on.

regardless, this thread is about HGH and not the FT.

Manuhell.2759:

Mrbig.8019:

Flamethrower is used by most top engies in EU.

Mostly for control purposes -air blast and smoke vent. The autoattack is an harm for the user.

Mrbig.8019:

Ostrich eggs uses bomb and nades togheter and is the king of condi AoE ( bunkers literally MELT, like any other class) .

More like, we only have those kinds of attacks. We’re kinda lacking in the single target department. Oh, it is fine if you are against some groups – as long as they aren’t focusing on you (you’ve got just a single utility slot left, so either you get a condition removal or a tool kit for the gear shield; either way, you haven’t got much to defend yourself).
But versus an ele or guardian bunker? No way. We haven’t got reliable ways of getting protection or stability and neither their healing capabilities.

elixir gun is a blast for bunkering and i’ve seen tons of top engies trying it ( even ostrich eggs if i recall correctly).

There are two skill there that helps bunkering, super elixir and healing mist.

Toolkit is also very strong for power nades engies, a very underrated build, especially if you have a good team supporting your damage ( and defending you, since you’re very squishy).

Mostly because we aren’t that good as far as direct damage go.

The engie has one of the best traits out there, in a single tree there are MAYBE 2-3 bad traits out there ( aside the tool tree, which has 4-5) .

take a look at other classes: all classes traits, aside guardians’, are in the opposite situation; 3-4 traits PER TREE are good while all the rest is utterly crap.

As i said above, a good amount of the traits is located basically in the wrong tree, according to what the weapons affected really do.

The engi is in a great place regarding balance and HGH is by no means engie strongest build: in fact it offers only damage, has no CC, is easily coutnerable, goes down like a fly if focused.

I did say the same above as well. Overspecialization, to make up for the poor base damage – since are basically hybrid weapons as far as damage types go. All the traits are aimed on powering up grenades/explosions or on optimizing elixirs.

As usual my advice is to learn your profession better and take a look at other classes instead of crying on forums.

I would rather advice you to learn the engineer profession better instead of giving misinformation.

except that MrBig seems to understand the big picture a little more clearly than you do.

see my sig

tigirius.9014:

Jastorm.5972:

How is it possible that flame jet still has the problem with missing so much. It is not like it is the only cone style weapon.

Drakes Breath
Fumigate
Cleansing Flame

I have never seen any of these have the same miss issue as flame jet. Please look into fixing this! Flame jet has had this issue for far too long!!!

It does you have to have near perfect camera control the entire time when using it. if enemies run behind you like in Orr then it becomes very noticeable. Yet another bug that was reported in patch notes as fixed but that never was.

And there’s also the Charr tendency to burn the ground instead of target the enemy straight forward.

it isn’t a bug when you face one way and cannot hit foes running beside or behind you.

l2p.

RaynStargaze.6510:

Jastorm.5972:

How is it possible that flame jet still has the problem with missing so much.

Havent had miss issues with FT since they patched it. Works fine for me.

Only downside is that FT is utter garbage in pvp (as is direct dmg engi in general)

if you are trying to use the FT for a dmg kit you are doing it wrong.

digiowl.9620:

Auto aim? There is a auto targeting toggle, but i do not recall there being a auto aim toggle. If i select a target, be it mouse, tab or simply skill use, any skill use will attempt to aim towards what i am targeting. And i kinda like that as any target that gets behind me is a simple skill tap away from being in front again.

And as OP pointed out, flame jet seems to be the only skill in the whole game that has a issue like this. This even tho there are multiple skills that use a similar mechanic.

tomato, tomato. qq more.

there are two settings which effect the behaviour of the flame jet: target lock, and auto aim.

the relevant setting is auto aim. if you have a target selected, but have your camera pointed away from that opponent, your flame jet will continue to track the target regardless of RMB+strafing when auto-aim is enabled.

this is what causes the mistaken “missing” and “stuttering” of the flame jet as the ability tries to figure out which way to face. thus, the farther off-centre your targeted opponent is, the more frequently you might find yourself “missing”

this is an incompatibility between a game feature and the skill’s mechanic, but there is nothing broken about the skill itself.

turn off auto aim.

@Vyx;

I think the difference is that the firestorm build is an offensive build while the ft/eg combo is a hybrid build.

Awesome, glad to see what you’ve put together make it’s way to the official forums.

I’ve cross referenced your thread with my sPVP FT thread.

We should get together and hash out the EG builds in sPVP, so that people have access to all the information.

the ft is not a weapon you can just find a “best” spec for. it is the least cookie cutter of all the kit builds.

phin already has a guide to the ft. you already know this, obviously, why ask for regurgitation of information already readily available?

a potential work around would be to allow a 30 second “replay buffer” on the observer side of the equation once they get observer mode working. then, viewers can access the last 30 seconds of what ever they are seeing, at any time, while the broadcast carries on without them.

thus may be something for twitch’s engineers, and not Anet’s, however.

the problem with replay isn’kittens technical feasibility, it is with its place within the mechanical framework of a tournament match.

There is no officiating, no set up between rounds, no organizing everyone on the field or the rink, waiting for the whistle to blow, no downtime at all.

Because of this, not only would replays interrupt the spectator’s view of the action, reviewing them in-line during a match also stutters the shoutcaster’s view of already frenetic and hard to describe action.

Hot dogs! Popcorn! Get’cher hot dogs here!

Backscratcher! BackScratchers!

GW2 pvp is new.

Rhetoric, broadcasting, elocution, and diction are not.

That said, our shoutcasters are not professionals (yet? asked with optimisms).

Blu, Bas, Grouch, tehMaker, et al. are doing a fantastic job for being volunteers who are players and fans themselves.

Give them a break, because they are only going to get better

Don’t forget that much of the reason the casters “miss” any of the action is due to the same problems that plague spectator mode, particularly a complete lack of being able to distinctly identify which teams’s spells/fields are in play short of watching the players skillbar and not the action.

I personally think that is the biggest hold up to lively shoutcasting.

Stop harping on the casters, they are this community’s most positive aspect, hands down.

and how does that conclusion arise “inevitably,” exactly?

forums are always the vocal minority. always.

you are aware that pve and pvp are, logistically, different departments staffed by different people, right?

it’s not like they all sit down over mornings coffee together and decide to work on just pve or whatever.

the pvp team works full time on pvp, consulting with pve team and vice versa.

I lost a solos to a premade w/ two minion necros, a bm ranger, and two messies.

so

many

pets.

lol was fun though.

trash talk is as much a part of live professional sports as it is video games.

the “gentlemanly” conduct and “sportsmanship” are not necessarily joined at the hip.

you can still play with an honest sportsman spirit and trash talk your foe. it is part of the psychological portion of the game.

Not even Pugilism, the “gentlemen’s sport” was devoid of trash talking.

make AOE effects friendly fire at a rate of 25% dmg, including to the caster.

promote movement on all sides, and melee won’t be as hurt by having to run in to AOE, so to speak, since it hurts everyone.

ps: give turrets more hit points. (shameless plug for engie fixes)

tea, any one?

XGhoul.7426:

piffdaddy.8014:

The best thing they could do would be to allow dueling inside the heart of the mists. Seriously, I don’t know why they didn’t think to do that before the game released. It would make the mists area much more meaningful instead of just a place to wait for tournament queues. (I would prefer the option to duel anywhere in the world but this might take too much work figuring out which places to disallow dueling)

No x10. This would only bring what every other dueling anywhere system brings: trolling/bs talking in chat

LAWL

you don’t want duels in the game because of rowdy general chat?

hahahahahahaha

Well, technically speaking, end game is the part of the mmo you play after maxing out your character’s level.

it’s nothing more complex than that.

edit: in essence, the mists and the pve scaling system effectively negate any end game in GW2 save the 5 man dungeons.

unless you count wvw. which is where you will find the largest concatenation of max level, gear rewards, individual skill, and complex team and guild coordination.

but … according to these forums, none of that exists in GW2.

bure, messier, gretzky, fuhr, anderson.

city of kitten champions, home of the bioware that matters, northern most urban capital, largest interconnected protected urban park system in the world…

Edmonton represent!

back patting aside, the comparison to live professional sports is a long time coming.

in general, gamers lack:
- sportsmanship
- credibility
- exposure

and this is largely due to the enduring jock vs nerd stigmas that industry heroes like Trip Hawkins worked so hard to erase. (Hawkins founded EA and is solely responsible for the introduction of sports in to games by getting Madden to out his name on the box).

that lower case “e” should not diminish the “sport” part, but – frankly – gamers don’t really put the best foot forward as a collective entity. and that is largely due to the inability for gaming communities to generate any form of consistency or consensus.

that was a lie, we are consistently fighting within ourselves, which I think is engendered (at least in part) by the sense of entitlement that “ownership” of one’s copy of the game instill in that “end user,” a sense of entitlement that is not applicable to live sports.

nak’s reccomendation:
- “own” the game by being better than other players, which means knowing you will. never stop getting better.

(soz, a bit of spill over from the end game thread there)

because in the digital world there is no algorithm to compute sportsmanship or competitive spirit.

consoles are played in the real world.

here on the internet, like in grade school, “no one fails,” so instead of self improvement people want prizes and cookies and stars for a job well done.

funny story about goldeneye, after I was published in nintedo power for earning the invincibility cheat in 1min47, I had people showing up at my dorm from other cities, controller in hand, challenging me to matches.

they never asked for prizes. prestige is an award enough.

here, people don’t even seem to accept that dueling is important.

LOL indeed.

Vyxion.6358:

I’m on 80% critdmg and 51% critchance, how is that not high? I’m staying with S.D.
Don’t see how you think 5 or so extra might stacks are going to beat what I’m using. Because you would be throwing all the added damage from my S.D. stuff out of the build (and critdmg from the traitline mind you) for a bit of extra might stacks. No way that would work better (and let’s be fair, HGH is dull as it gets, no fun imo).

ahh, fellow levitican, it is good to have you in our ranks.

I thought I explained that when I described turrets as structures like seize weapons, did I not?

pets are controllable companions.
utilities are skills on cool downs.

whether you like it or not, a turret is just an extra auto attack utility.
- a net every 10 seconds.
- a rocket every 4
- a thump every 3
- regen every 3
- flame every (what? I don’t know, I never use it, tbh) 3 or 4.

it’s like ctrl+clicking your utility slot to fire on auto. that’s it, that’s all

I am done here. you want this thread to be a qq turrets sick thread, and not a source of information about turrets that can lead to improvement.
you want pets.

go play a pet class.

Kimbald.2697:

Point defending pvp is probaby the closest turrets get to an optimal setting.
It’s almost a clear arena with hardly any other diversion than your enemies themselves.

In any other part of the game, turret targeting is much more an issue than in point defending.

You described how it is not entirely optimal in their best setting, point defense. Now consider how it is an issue anywhere else in the game.
From pvp roaming, over WvW anything, to pve questing or dungeons…

and in what scenario has pvp and pve ever worked the same?

Right, and no one has argued that the AI is where it needs to be. I certainly haven’t.

But, that does not discount the fact that you can use turrets intelligently on the play field and work them to your advantage.

The place where turrets are most beneficial, by theory/design, is point defense in TPVP.

In most scenarios, you start in a 1v1 fight as a turret bunker, so your turret rarely has problems targetting.

Oh, but a mesmer or a minion necro showed up first, mew mew! My turrets can’t pick a target!
- You don’t suppose .. just maybe .. maaayyyyybe … that that is (at the very least) a small part of the point/benefit of being a mesmer or pet class?

things that everyone has agreed on:
- low HP pool [problematized by large hitbox]
- inefficient AI [problematized by lack of direct turret control]
- long cooldowns [problematized by lack of mobility]

But I stand by my assertion that part of the usability problem with Turrets is that people think they should be pets, and that is a completely different frame of mind for using them than if you were to (correctly, in my opinion) understand that turrets are not pets, and thus function differently.

I’ve given my feedback on how I think turrets would be improved as utilities. Y’all skimmed over it crying about lack of mechanical legs to let your turrets follow you.

/shrug.

shimzor.6057:

bhagwad.4281:

Luthan.5236:

Kwll.1468:

Ah so the people who like rewards are 14 year old children.

Yes, if they only play for rewards. It’s okay to play “for fun” and be happy if there are additional rewards. But some people are really playing only if you give them some reward.

You haven’t explained why this is a bad thing. Sounds like merely a preference to me. Can you show that one way is better than the other?

Its not road to some place, so you cant tell which is shorter or better. Its a way of life, girls love dresses/makeups, warriors love to fight.!

Simple as that.

slightly off topic;

you might get a kick out of this post

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Famous-Quotes-for-the-Engineer/page/5#post1257926

in this thread

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Famous-Quotes-for-the-Engineer/first

lots of hilarity within.

you are aware that with deployable turrets you can place then out of harms way, right?
which forces your opponents to directly target them, right?
which means that they aren’t targetting you for that moment, right?
which means that you, as a skilled player, can turn that in to an advantage, right?

turrets are not pets, and just because you want them to be will not make them so.

turrets are stationary structured utilities. wrap your head around this, and you will become much less stressed and fretful over everything, and actually understand what Anet is trying to do with them.

no, you are right, because maximum dps at all times is the only way to play games.

i played thief the dark age and splinter cell with an AK instead of sneaking around too.

Rezzet.3614:

for lvl 40 and under players FT is a decent choice tho

PFFFTTT AHAHhaHhahAhaHAhAhAhAhahahAhAHAHHAhAHhahAHaHA.

…

LOL.

ohh, man, let me catch my breath.

first off, sub level 40 you can’t even get juggernaut yet, let alone juggernaut and deadly mixture.

so, right off the bat the FT is designed as a weapon for experienced players.

BUT .. barring that .. your reason for “sub 40” commentary is that, in high level play, YOU die to retaliation … which tell me that YOU need to go back to the sub 40 zones to learn how to stop attacking when you get debuffed.

what you do you think “levelling” up is for? purely to unlock traits?

no my friend, … it is to teach you how to play the game …

FT a sub 40 weapon … AHahAHAhAHHAhAhAhhahaHaHahah… hooo

/tearwipe

i needed that.

but ..

this is one of the nice things that engies have.

this build is working as intended.

(and aren’t all GC builds “one trick ponies”, technically? why should we be special?)

turrets are no more NPCs than the volcanic fissures in the grawl fractal (as an example).

turrets are structures like siege weapons, trebuchets, etc. which fire automatically. mortar is a special “elite” structure that allows your allies to control it.

they are stationary utilities.

they are not meant to move, and i will be thoroughly surprised if they ever do.

just because they are lack luster utilities (currently, for the most part) does not mean that they are anything but utilities.

ps: another example of a turret-like utility in the game are the cannons in the final stage of the Arah story. Those are not NPC either.

Rezzet.3614:

best part 1200 range oh and no missmissmissmissmiss

stop trying to use the FT from 1200 range and you will stop missmissmissmissmissing.

get close and personal with it. trust me. it works just fine.

also, in what way are you ridiculously easy to counter without high condi?

part of the problem is this misconception that turrets are pets..

they aren’t, they are utilities.

you may well want them to be pets, but don’t hold your breath.

re: smart pvp players;
- with deployable turrets you can put the turrets in places that make the opponent have to choose to go after them while you pummel the opponent.

- if your opponent is smart, play smarter than them.

/facepalm.

thid is a placeholder until I get home and have a keyboard.

what is obscure about saying that statistics are meaningless without context, and that statistical manipulation is how they are made meaningful?

please, oh great Arga, show me how you know that I never read what you wrote.

please.

it strikes me as funny that someone who agrees with me is “one of those”. did they not read what you wrote either?

ell oh ell.

my game ends every time I log out.

that does not say that the manipulated stat is inaccurate.

i t says that statistics != skill. which is what we are debating here.

reading comprehension ftw.

and, again, statistics are a meaningless numerical relationships without manipulation to put them in to context and give them meaning.

this fact has not changed. there is an entire branch of science devoted to this very practice. it is called … statistics.

statistics mean nothing until you interpret them. they are just relational numbers.

Arganthium.5638:

nakoda.4213:

i clearly said that manipulate was NOT meant to be seen as a taboo thing, it is just a verb: to manipulate.

with that in mind, i didn’t bother reading the rest of what you said, because you haven’t bothered to read what i’ve said.

discussion over. good bye.

It’s funny that you say this, because then you went on to describe how apparently by being manipulated the statistic is inaccurate.

and where did i say that?

Also, you should have no problem finding a bazillion pvpers on Anvil Rock to get your more familiar with the whole system.

Anvil Rock is the Spvp oasis for NA.

i don’t like stacking sigils either, but one thing Phin points out that you ought to consider is that (with the FT, specifically) a high crit rate is only useful for proccing effects UNLESS you stack power and crit dmg (zerker gear) so that your crits punch harder.

re: purity: is condi removal really that big a deal in pve? because in pvp, the purity sigil is a waste of space, it just doesn’t proc often enough when you need it to. strength/air/flame/leeching are much better options. but i don’t know pve from mittens.

Arganthium.5638:

zaxon.6819:

i agree the system is useless. the issue i have is that it is now a part of the game and people can in some way consider it useful information.

in reality it is relevant information to anet not other players. since what is important to people who run a mmo is time played per person.

adding a /playedpvp would have = the same thing pretty much and they could have saved thier time and effort for bug fixing.

But if I’m looking to add a new Guard to my team, it’d be helpful to know which ones are the best that are free at any given moment.

No matter what the statistical system, the only way to ever judge that appropriately is to watch that player play, and/or play with that player.

what do you think professional scouts are for in RL sports?

They start with the stats (rank) and then observe. Then they interpret the stats based upon their CONTEXTUAL OBSERVATION of reality. Then they decide to put the player on the list or not.

Arganthium.5638:

Did you really not read my original post? At all? Any of it? Or did you just see the words “skill level” and “rank” and think “omg he must think that skill=rank lol”

your leap of logic is midichlorian.

of course i read your post, you want a ranking system that reflects skills. not that rank = skill.

i never said rank = skill, nor did i say that that is what you said.

i said that rank != skill.

Arganthium.5638:

no numerical tally system will ever accurately reflect skill, because skill is not numerical.

And on what basis do you make this claim? Can one’s skill not be greater than another’s? Lesser than? Can’t a person’s skill level grow, or decrease? Isn’t skill an objective factor, and not a subjective one? How can you possibly state that there is no way to give a numerical rating of a person’s skill level, particularly when you haven’t even researched it yet?

because any numerical representation is a stripped down point of reference that divorces itself from context. this is why personal in-game score is, at the end of the day, irrelevant in a team match.

A Bunker with 0 points on a winning team did his job. How does 0 reflect skill? It doesn’t. It never will.

Conversely, a Roamer with 300 points on a losing team probably didn’t do his job. How does his 300 points reflect skill? It doesn’t. It never will.

Arganthium.5638:

the ranking system as it is now, functions as a report of how much time that player has spent playing pvp.

Why is that a bad thing?

Give me a single instance where I said it was a “bad thing”.

I never did say that, did I? I said that it didn’t serve the purpose people were using it for.

And my point is that people are expecting the wrong things from Rank. IE: You’re doing it wrong.

Arganthium.5638:

all you will ever have on any stat sheet is a relational representation of time spent doing something.

You make the claims, you better bring up the evidence.

Such as? What evidence is needed for a statement like that? Statistics are relational. That’s just what they are, a relation. They are valueless until manipulated and presented in a meaningful way. (MANIPULATE IS A VERB, NOT A NEGATIVE ACTION so don’t bother with some irrelevant argument about how stats aren’t manipulated. For example, tallying a RBI ratio is, technically, manipulation of statistics for meaningful presentation. Runs batted in over a period of time.) Statistics lack context.

Arganthium.5638:

i wasn’t being facetious or trolling in either of my posts, i was discussing the issues you take with the ranking system.

how does that not address what you want to talk about?

Because you never addressed how my idea doesn’t work, just how ideas that I didn’t have are actually completely false.

I never said your ideas don’t work. Not once. All I ever said is that rank, as it is, is working for what it is intended to do, and that the leaderboards and match making are borked.

you are the one jumping down my throat here, not the other way around.

All I am saying is that Rank will never be a measure of skill, because skill is immeasurable.

I never said “kitten you, stupid head, more stats is kitten bleeeheheh”
(this is me being facetious)

srsly.

more stats would be great, but you cannot expect them to measure skill.
even the reading of statistics is a subjective experience, because you have to reinterpret them, and everyone interprets differently, as this thread clearly showcases.

i think that is one of the differences in pvp and pve, as well.

the rifle and net turret as a combo with the FT is, essentially, infinite and unlimited single target control; i always have a net or a knock back or whatever ready when I need it.

but in pve (which I haven’t done much of since I hit 80), i would much rather have a shield than the rifle because I would be surrounding myself with baddies while farming.

(i am not, in any fashion, suggesting that the p/s is useless in pvp with the FT.)

the mistake was that they promoted the esports of GW2 before pvp was complete, balanced, and even ready for spectating, because GW2 was/is a PVE game with PVP in it.

GW1 was the exact opposite.

Of those three qualifiers – complete, balanced, and ready for spectating – Anet only has one of three.

The rest will come in time, don’t get me wrong, but currently that is where some of the problem lies.

your quoting skills are lack luster.

let me reiterate for you:

rank will never display actual skill level. ever.

no numerical tally system will ever accurately reflect skill, because skill is not numerical.

the ranking system as it is now, functions as a report of how much time that player has spent playing pvp.

Why is that a bad thing?

all you will ever have on any stat sheet is a relational representation of time spent doing something.

i wasn’t being facetious or trolling in either of my posts, i was discussing the issues you take with the ranking system.

how does that not address what you want to talk about?