Explosives line is a little... lackluster?

[FalsePromises.6398]

To begin, I want to get my thought process down here before I move on to talking about explosives line in detail. Many classes' offensive trait specialization lines (e.g. spite/curses in necromancer, dueling/domination on mesmer) have a complementary mechanic that comes alongside the damage oriented traits and styles. Referring to the examples, spite/curses have boon removal and corruption, and dueling/domination have blinds, reflects, stuns, and boonrips, and furthermore, guardian has zeal/radiance with blinds/retaliation mechanics and burning/damage buffs, and warrior has might/endurance regeneration in strength.When we take these kind of complementary mechanics into mind and look at engineer's arms/explosives, explosives has this strange lack. Arms has a healthy amount of critical chance buffs, boons, and condition damage buffers as well as damage modifiers, but explosives feels like a lot of the traits are outdated or nonvital to any build, really. From this, I say explosives line on engineer could definitely use some sort of complementary mechanic, akin to the ones discussed above. Before you say "mines on dodge" hear this: there's no endurance regeneration in explosives, that's in tools. My suggestion? Give explosives boon stripping capabilities. The only classes that have relevant boon removal are spellbreaker, necromancer, mesmer, and thief. Spellbreaker's boon removal isn't something that is widely applicable, being oriented largely around the ominous bubble. Mesmer and thief are two duelists that don't have much place doing damage/lockdown oriented tactics in a large scale setting, as far as I can tell, and they more excel in duelist settings. Necromancer is almost a necessity in group pvp/wvw content due to it being the only consistent area boon removal class. If engineer's explosives line got relevant boon removal mechanics, they could at least be a relevant substitute if not rival to necromancer's obligatory boon removal, and break the enforced meta of using necromancers as boon removal bruisers. Engineer has the area capabilities of necromancer with the right kits, and could very well contend hypothetically. If you're reading this and thinking "that'll just enable more boon-heavy builds to seem balanced and tip the scales against every other class", to that I say adding boon removal to engineer isn't necessarily an expansion on boon removal, since explosives line is a specialization not many engineers currently take, and many would consider it a sacrifice of another line to do so. A little extra nugget on that, a few engineer skills already remove boons, namely throw mine: I felt that was a good idea that could very well be built further on.

TL:DR engineer explosives should get boon removal to add more variegated counter-play to boons in pvp and wvw settings as well as provide a complementary mechanic to its damage as other classes have in their offensive core trait specialization lines. (Also check out what's bold for a quick highlighted version)

What are your thoughts on something like this? Good? Bad? Makes you want to punch me in the face for not being satisfied with the lackluster situational damage modifiers explosives already has? Share what you think.

[ParadoX.3124]

We really need a useful master trait on explosive to make engi compete with all other dps classes on PVE.

For WvW, boon removal is a good idea, like "explosive skills remove a boon, three sec recharge". However, it wouldn't change anything on PVE HL. Engi needs to be the best at something, or to have a unique party buff without sacrificing too much on Dps.

We also need grenades to have better radius, better speed and only hit once. At the moment, because of this, it cannot be used on WvW unless you want to kill yourself : 5x3 hits : 15x retal damage back to you on each launch.

I have seen another post about elixir S weeks ago. On WvW at least, we have to be able to move away from the fight when using it. At the moment, the amount of cripple / chill condition is really high and you cannot escape without dodging to go away (which is sad because you are supposed to be invincible and can not use any skill). Maybe we could add resistance when using elixir S ?

[bambi.6214]

What's the point of resistance on S? It makes you invulnerable, this includes condis.@FalsePromises.6398 : I absolutely agree with you, I though about boon strip for explosives for a long time, but along with that Engi would absolutely need some kind of unblockable, whether in Explosives, Firearms or in other form (cough cough Utility Goggles cough cough). Without that in WvW engineer would be a liability with the amount of random reflects, absolutely everywhere.

And Firearms would definitely need some kind of a rework too. Both Firearms and Explosives are a weird mix of condi-power-utility traits and need a clean-up and a clear direction (overall Firearms is a bit better, but grandmasters are simply garbage)

[Stand The Wall.6987]

also it would be nice if arms had a useful grandmaster.

[Vagrant.7206]

@"Stand The Wall.6987" said:also it would be nice if arms had a useful grandmaster.

I always thought Modified Ammunition was the weirdest GM trait in the game. It relies on the enemy having more conditions to do power damage. So if you spec condi, you don't get the benefit, and if you spec power you don't get the benefit. Only way you can get the benefit is if you spec hybrid (which isn't that good) or have teammates.

Juggernaut is just garbage if you don't camp flamethrower, and incendiary powder is just... meh?

[ParadoX.3124]

@Samug.6512 said:What's the point of resistance on S? It makes you invulnerable, this includes condis.@FalsePromises.6398 : I absolutely agree with you, I though about boon strip for explosives for a long time, but along with that Engi would absolutely need some kind of unblockable, whether in Explosives, Firearms or in other form (cough cough Utility Goggles cough cough). Without that in WvW engineer would be a liability with the amount of random reflects, absolutely everywhere.

And Firearms would definitely need some kind of a rework too. Both Firearms and Explosives are a weird mix of condi-power-utility traits and need a clean-up and a clear direction (overall Firearms is a bit better, but grandmasters are simply garbage)

It makes you invulnerable to condi dmg, but it does not include chill and cripple

[FalsePromises.6398]

@Vagrant.7206 said:

@"Stand The Wall.6987" said:also it would be nice if arms had a useful grandmaster.

I always thought

Modified Ammunition

was the weirdest GM trait in the game. It relies on the enemy having more conditions to do power damage. So if you spec condi, you don't get the benefit, and if you spec power you don't get the benefit. Only way you can get the benefit is if you spec hybrid (which isn't that good) or have teammates.

Juggernaut is just garbage if you don't camp flamethrower, and incendiary powder is just... meh?I mean, I used to be an engineer fan before I got attached to necromancer, and lemme tell ya, incendiary powder has seen better days. It used to apply 2 burning instead of 1, and flamethrower camping used to be a viable style before boon removal and heavy cc on everything became popular. As towards Modified Ammunition, I feel like it's more a raid/organized group PvE content static damage increase instead of really an independent grandmaster trait, which is kinda weird to consider in the first place, but its nevertheless useful anyway as it greatly increases damage in those situations where applicable. Incendiary powder got nerfed because people got mad at gimmick burnstack and stealth scrappers in PvP (which I used to love playing, but wasn't OP, just niche).

[Hynax.9536]

@"ParadoX.3124" said:For WvW, boon removal is a good idea, like "explosive skills remove a boon, three sec recharge". However, it wouldn't change anything on PVE HL. Engi needs to be the best at something, or to have a unique party buff without sacrificing too much on Dps.

Agree with that, boon removal seems to be a good idea but engineers are already in a good place when it comes to PvP and WvW and falling behing other classes when it comes to PVE Dps or Sup. If explosives were to be changed to get such feature, they should at least care not to touch the few damage increasers that are there or we will be competing for reapers position in meta, and as said by others they would have to change how explosive kits work cuz grenades and bombs are far from usable in competitive modes.

Why do we still have Orbital Command? I believe anything would fit better in that GM trait.

[bambi.6214]

@Hynax.9536 said:

@"ParadoX.3124" said:For WvW, boon removal is a good idea, like "explosive skills remove a boon, three sec recharge". However, it wouldn't change anything on PVE HL. Engi needs to be the best at something, or to have a unique party buff without sacrificing too much on Dps.

Agree with that, boon removal seems to be a good idea but engineers are already in a good place when it comes to PvP and WvW and falling behing other classes when it comes to PVE Dps or Sup. If explosives were to be changed to get such feature, they should at least care not to touch the few damage increasers that are there or we will be competing for reapers position in meta, and as said by others they would have to change how explosive kits work cuz grenades and bombs are far from usable in competitive modes.

Why do we still have Orbital Command? I believe anything would fit better in that GM trait.

No. Engineer are definitely not in a good place in those game modes. Holosmith, sure, is incredibly universal even in PvE and basically carries the class, but I daresay any other engineer build is falling behind, and before you say healing Scrapper - no, I do not believe scrapper is in a good place. It's a good filler if there's a Firebrand in the group already, but will never substitute it, same as healing tempest etc, and it wasn't even designed for this role. And the god-awful unfunction gyro. Just make detection pulse as F5 on scrapper.IMO whole engineer class needs a major rework - buffing core substantially, nerfing holo a little, removing scrapper and giving us another elite spec.

[ParadoX.3124]

You need to talk about game mode when talking about buff or nerf... Holo might deserve a nerf on PvP, but it also needs to have better defensive possibilities on WvW and better DPS on PVE.

I also need to point the fact that condi engi (core/scrapper/Holo) is in a really bad spot in all game modes, compared to condi mirage, condi FB and condi Sb.

[Hynax.9536]

@Samug.6512 said:No. Engineer are definitely not in a good place in those game modes. Holosmith, sure, is incredibly universal even in PvE and basically carries the class, but I daresay any other engineer build is falling behind, and before you say healing Scrapper - no, I do not believe scrapper is in a good place. It's a good filler if there's a Firebrand in the group already, but will never substitute it, same as healing tempest etc, and it wasn't even designed for this role. And the god-awful unfunction gyro. Just make detection pulse as F5 on scrapper.IMO whole engineer class needs a major rework - buffing core substantially, nerfing holo a little, removing scrapper and giving us another elite spec.

I'm not a sPvP player so i may be wrong about it, but by my own experience i could not love more play as scrapper or holosmith in WvW. As a scrapper i'm not talking about just scrapper healer, actually i don't even play healer, i have builds for both zerg and roaming and i don't feel useless or underpowered so i believe they are indeed in good position. My conclusions about sPvP comes by the feedback of my friends always talking about how scrapper is broken and stuff (maybe they're just bad?).That does not mean engineers are perfect, of course there are lots of skills and traits i would change (yeah including functionless gyro), and core engineer needs an upgrade (but then all core classes need).

Now bringing back to the main topic, i'm just saying that for PvE all we have now is Holosmith DPS builds, and they rely heavily in those traits that OP is suggesting changes, so i'm just saying to be careful or we won't even be able to play PvE with engineer anymore.

[Ghos.1326]

@Samug.6512 said:

@Hynax.9536 said:

@"ParadoX.3124" said:For WvW, boon removal is a good idea, like "explosive skills remove a boon, three sec recharge". However, it wouldn't change anything on PVE HL. Engi needs to be the best at something, or to have a unique party buff without sacrificing too much on Dps.

Agree with that, boon removal seems to be a good idea but engineers are already in a good place when it comes to PvP and WvW and falling behing other classes when it comes to PVE Dps or Sup. If explosives were to be changed to get such feature, they should at least care not to touch the few damage increasers that are there or we will be competing for reapers position in meta, and as said by others they would have to change how explosive kits work cuz grenades and bombs are far from usable in competitive modes.

Why do we still have Orbital Command? I believe anything would fit better in that GM trait.

No. Engineer are definitely not in a good place in those game modes. Holosmith, sure, is incredibly universal even in PvE and basically carries the class, but I daresay any other engineer build is falling behind, and before you say healing Scrapper - no, I do not believe scrapper is in a good place. It's a good filler if there's a Firebrand in the group already, but will never substitute it, same as healing tempest etc, and it wasn't even designed for this role. And the god-awful unfunction gyro. Just make detection pulse as F5 on scrapper.IMO whole engineer class needs a major rework - buffing core substantially, nerfing holo a little, removing scrapper and giving us another elite spec.

I don't want Scrapper to be removed. I like it.

[Nephalem.8921]

@Hynax.9536 said:Now bringing back to the main topic, i'm just saying that for PvE all we have now is Holosmith DPS builds, and they rely heavily in those traits that OP is suggesting changes, so i'm just saying to be careful or we won't even be able to play PvE with engineer anymore.

So whats the difference then? Engineer is already the worst class for fractals. It is also quite bad in raids unless you use music instrument heat resets. And before someone posts logs of holo being top in fractals just check if it was exploited or not because all decent holo logs i saw only existed because of that heat reset bug allowing pbm engi to play without bombs and spending 90% of the fight in forge.

[Hynax.9536]

@Nephalem.8921 said:

@Hynax.9536 said:Now bringing back to the main topic, i'm just saying that for PvE all we have now is Holosmith DPS builds, and they rely heavily in those traits that OP is suggesting changes, so i'm just saying to be careful or we won't even be able to play PvE with engineer anymore.

So whats the difference then? Engineer is already the worst class for fractals. It is also quite bad in raids unless you use music instrument heat resets. And before someone posts logs of holo being top in fractals just check if it was exploited or not because all decent holo logs i saw only existed because of that heat reset bug allowing pbm engi to play without bombs and spending 90% of the fight in forge.

Yeah, i'm well aware of how bad engineers are in PvE in general right now and anet loves to nerf things, so you can't expect to receive new features in a spec without losing something in exchange, and if we lose any more damage modifier in any of these traits engineer PvE will be dead for good since a mediocre DPS is all we can do right now and boon removal hardly would give us any new role in PvE.

[XenoSpyro.1780]

Explosives boost your damage by a little bit while taking Alchemy skyrockets your survivability. It's sad.

@"Vagrant.7206" said:I always thought Modified Ammunition was the weirdest GM trait in the game.Well you're already guaranteed +2% with Bleeding, one more condi of any kind and you're near Force sigil , another and you're over it. The damage is fine, the trait just needs another effect to be taken seriously.

[FalsePromises.6398]

@ParadoX.3124 said:You need to talk about game mode when talking about buff or nerf... Holo might deserve a nerf on PvP, but it also needs to have better defensive possibilities on WvW and better DPS on PVE.

I also need to point the fact that condi engi (core/scrapper/Holo) is in a really bad spot in all game modes, compared to condi mirage, condi FB and condi Sb.

I've always felt that the middle column of the Holosmith traitline was far underappreciated and underwhelmingly unfinished. If you think holosmith deserves an offensive nerf in PvP and a defensive buff in WvW and better static damage in PvE, why not start from there? Anet reworked celestial avatar in a similar sense, and although it killed druid in many modes, it did provide them legitimate specialization. Way I see it, they could very well rework the configurations into kit-reworking mechanics, where eclipse would match corona burst's theme to be a little slower hitting and moving with less damage, which would put less absurdity on holosmith in PvP given their high stability uptime combo with their damage and mobility; zephyr could be a melee oriented damage and mobility style that would present faster attacks, possibly quickness uptime to allow the current style of rifle holo meta to persist at the expense of their stability; and lightning configuration could rework the kit into a mid to long range oriented kit that would better work in PvE with damage buffs and for Pete's sake less choppiness on the autoattack that currently exists when taking lightning (since the next chain can't cast until the last casted projectile hits). If we want to talk holo buffs, nerfs, or reworks, I believe that middle column is the place to start. Other than that, the only place to really attack in a meaningful way is the utilities, which imo were misguidedly created as personal defense oriented when slapped onto an offensive spec, seeing as how holographic wall has completely smothered the age old use for tool kit, holographic arena performs far better than many elixirs, and holographic bubble just... doesn't really make sense to me outside of a stunbreak.

[Nephalem.8921]

@FalsePromises.6398Tier 1 trait is also quite bad. 10% mod on one attack does just nothing with laser edge or sword 2. Quickness uptime doesn't help pve engi since you will have perma quickness anyways.The grandmaster tier is also a huge mess with the 37.5% mod. Such a mod means that either scrapper will stay a useless meme or holo becomes super broken. Vent exhaust paired with heat therapy should be nerfed instead of the damage. Design team called holo glass cannon but it got almost only bruiser skills and traits while scrapper was supposed to be that. Weaver got just all the love while holo didnt even get heat scaling on his other weapons.Utilities could get a change like being more offensive. But honestly damage isnt engis only problem. It just has no support on top of below dh dps. Either give it top tier damage or support or it wont have a place in raids or fractals unless you are in one of those 1h taking hfb groups.

[Tiilimon.6094]

The only reason I traited explosives is Short Fuse, and earlier double orbi for mega blasts. The kit is too slow for utility purposes otherwise.