Grenade Auto Attack.

[Waffles.5632]

4 hours ago, bethekey.8314 said:

I'm inclined to agree, but ground targeted AoEs are more awkward to have cone (LoS) restrictions. I think it's not as clear what can and can't hit. Arcane thievery is a targeted skill, yes?

I can see your point of view, but Arcane Thievery is also single target and cannot be spammed, so that is why I think it would be okay to remove face targeting on that skill. It sees absolutely no play in any pvp format atm because of that past change.

In scenarios with a downed player IMO grenades are too oppressive for how free they are, maybe a short CD on the grenade 1 skill would be a better fix than removing free targeting though.

I don't consider them too much of a problem outside of scenarios with downed players however. For kiting, nades are medium range and count as projectiles so I feel there is appropriate counter play there.

[Stalima.5490]

On 5/31/2023 at 11:29 PM, bethekey.8314 said:

If your idea of balance ignores all other facets of skills apart from raw damage, then I hope you never go into game design.

because throwing wide aoe bombs at the floor with no regard for your positioning is more skilled than having to tactically choose where you are at all times because your opponent getting up close and behind you on rifle causes severe issues while the grenades change absoloutely nothing in this very commonly desired scenario for the enemy vs rifle.

The grenades can even strike over some line of sight obstacles and even directly through them with it's entire skillset, the rifle comes to a complete stop with more or less just the one grenade hit and maybe a really pushing it jump shot if your enemy goes afk.

 

On 6/1/2023 at 12:12 AM, Kuma.1503 said:

Rifle auto had more range, can't miss, and doesn't consume a utility slot. 

It was also overnerfed due to community backlash.

The Rifle auto can most certainly miss and consumes your SINGLE weapon slot, it is literally the most prime component of any engineer build, if anything the engineer weapons should be more powerful than other professions because we can't really change them, Kits simply need to be reworked to play around your equipped weapon possibly reworked into weapon mods instead of kits now that the hobo sack is gone from the world and the entire problem between kit vs weapon fixes itself.

 

For example grenade kit + rifle would = grenade launcher

bomb kit + rifle would = short range blast cannon

 

There would be tons of cool stuff they could do with that to even make things like a power pistol or a condition rifle possible.

Edited June 2, 2023 by Stalima.5490

[Kuma.1503]

7 hours ago, Stalima.5490 said:

because throwing wide aoe bombs at the floor with no regard for your positioning is more skilled than having to tactically choose where you are at all times because your opponent getting up close and behind you on rifle causes severe issues while the grenades change absoloutely nothing in this very commonly desired scenario for the enemy vs rifle.

The grenades can even strike over some line of sight obstacles and even directly through them with it's entire skillset, the rifle comes to a complete stop with more or less just the one grenade hit and maybe a really pushing it jump shot if your enemy goes afk.

The trade-off being their efffectiveness drops off compared to traditional ranged weapons as targets move further away. Nades are ranged weapons that shine the most when the opponent is at close to mid range. They're more likely to miss, either due to player error or RNG spread as targets move further away. 

7 hours ago, Stalima.5490 said:

The Rifle auto can most certainly miss and consumes your SINGLE weapon slot, it is literally the most prime component of any engineer build, if anything the engineer weapons should be more powerful than other professions because we can't really change them, Kits simply need to be reworked to play around your equipped weapon possibly reworked into weapon mods instead of kits now that the hobo sack is gone from the world and the entire problem between kit vs weapon fixes itself.

Consuming your single weapon slot would matter more if Engineer had more competition for that slot. Core literally has no other option as their power weapon. This class desperately needs more weapon variety. 

7 hours ago, Stalima.5490 said:

For example grenade kit + rifle would = grenade launcher

bomb kit + rifle would = short range blast cannon

 

There would be tons of cool stuff they could do with that to even make things like a power pistol or a condition rifle possible.

 

Which is precicely why I like this idea. This would be such an interesting/unique way to give engineer more weapon variety without necessarily adding more weapons. And it would play into fantasy of being an inventor as you are DIYing your weapons together on the fly. 

If Anet decides to do reworks to core classes in the next expansion in place of new elite specs, I hope they do sometihing like this. 

 

Edited June 2, 2023 by Kuma.1503

[Exedore.6320]

Grenade Kit has been busted since launch. It's power is so disproportionately higher than everything else in the engi arsenal that the class ends up balanced around it. Elite spec mechanics then get balanced against Grenade Kit.

[felix.2386]

tbh tho, that scrapper build is so squishy/nade damage is justifiable

what's making it work is super speed and stealth.

which explains how mobility like super speed/teleport and stealth are so op.

it will allow anything to run super glass and still work.

and is single-handedly carrying nade scrappers' playability and sustain. if you nerf nade damage it's gonna do irrelevant damage when Engi actually builds for more balanced builds.

Edited June 3, 2023 by felix.2386

[Zex Anthon.8673]

1 hour ago, felix.2386 said:

tbh tho, that scrapper build is so squishy/nade damage is justifiable

what's making it work is super speed and stealth.

which explains how mobility like super speed/teleport and stealth are so op.

it will allow anything to run super glass and still work.

and is single-handedly carrying nade scrappers' playability and sustain. if you nerf nade damage it's gonna do irrelevant damage when Engi actually builds for more balanced builds.

This right here.

Every class that takes berserker's amulet and all dps traits will do ridiculous damage. Only a few classes can abuse it with built in defense.

It's the same reason Catalyst is so strong.

[Downstate.4697]

2 hours ago, felix.2386 said:

tbh tho, that scrapper build is so squishy/nade damage is justifiable

what's making it work is super speed and stealth.

which explains how mobility like super speed/teleport and stealth are so op.

it will allow anything to run super glass and still work.

and is single-handedly carrying nade scrappers' playability and sustain. if you nerf nade damage it's gonna do irrelevant damage when Engi actually builds for more balanced builds.

That’s a good point.  But also doesn’t change the fact that grenades requires minimal skill and can provide consistent team fight pressure with no loss of resources. Lower the auto attack damage and buff the damage of the other grenade skills.

[Stalima.5490]

On 6/2/2023 at 6:32 PM, Kuma.1503 said:

The trade-off being their efffectiveness drops off compared to traditional ranged weapons as targets move further away. Nades are ranged weapons that shine the most when the opponent is at close to mid range. They're more likely to miss, either due to player error or RNG spread as targets move further away. 

I disagree with this because a slight shimmy completely invalidates the rifle at long range

 

On 6/2/2023 at 6:32 PM, Kuma.1503 said:

Consuming your single weapon slot would matter more if Engineer had more competition for that slot. Core literally has no other option as their power weapon. This class desperately needs more weapon variety. 

and since we are talking more about the recent scrapper build , you need to make a concious choice to put the rifle or the hammer in, the hammer can do alot more damage than the rifle and doesn't suffer projectile blocks while the rifle can offer safer positioning in combat at the cost of mitigation, however with the grenade kit you can now also run a pistol/shield for the shield defenses since you never really need your main weapon, as such the grenade kit offers better defensive options than the rifle that would basically need to use the tool kit to make up for this advantage.

 

and just to really push my point home, the grenade kit also massively increases all damage from all sources on your target as a base component of the explosives traitline, the rifle is substantially weaker at increasing your allies damage output on your target in comparison. to iterate if you take a mere 3 autoattacks, the engineer is now dealing 13.5% more damage while his allies are dealing an additonal 9% to you when using the grenade kit, but with the rifle that is dropped to a mere 4.5% engineer damage and 3% ally damage. (assuming said allies do not have their own further increased damage to vulnerable targets)

Edited June 4, 2023 by Stalima.5490

[Kuma.1503]

  

10 hours ago, Stalima.5490 said:

I disagree with this because a slight shimmy completely invalidates the rifle at long range

 

and since we are talking more about the recent scrapper build , you need to make a concious choice to put the rifle or the hammer in, the hammer can do alot more damage than the rifle and doesn't suffer projectile blocks while the rifle can offer safer positioning in combat at the cost of mitigation, however with the grenade kit you can now also run a pistol/shield for the shield defenses since you never really need your main weapon, as such the grenade kit offers better defensive options than the rifle that would basically need to use the tool kit to make up for this advantage.

 

and just to really push my point home, the grenade kit also massively increases all damage from all sources on your target as a base component of the explosives traitline, the rifle is substantially weaker at increasing your allies damage output on your target in comparison. to iterate if you take a mere 3 autoattacks, the engineer is now dealing 13.5% more damage while his allies are dealing an additonal 9% to you when using the grenade kit, but with the rifle that is dropped to a mere 4.5% engineer damage and 3% ally damage. (assuming said allies do not have their own further increased damage to vulnerable targets)

Cutting this post down because legnth. 

I agree with you that grenades deal disproportionately high damage. Both compared to other auto attacks, and compared to the rest of Engi's kit. 

My only problem is when people who point this out while ignoring the sleuth of nerfs that forced Engi into an over-reliance on grenades.  Or attempt to oversell how good they actually are. They're strong, but as far as auto attacks go, calling them brainless is... strange considereing other auto attacks auto aim while these take some amount of skill/effort to land in hectic combat. (You didn't say this. Just pointing it out because it comes up a lot when nades are brought up)

I'm also painfully aware of Anet's trend of nerfing something that props a class up without any form of compensation. 

Like they did when they neutered rifle, and gave core power engi nothing. It was finally playable for all of 2 months, but community whine got it nerfed back into the dirt. 

For that reason I'd like them to rework the things that got broke/overnerfed first before touching nades. 

Edited June 4, 2023 by Kuma.1503

[felix.2386]

On 5/26/2023 at 8:24 PM, Myror.7521 said:

@felix.2386 when it comes to PvP. The Trick is. Not run straight though him or at least not in a straigth Line. Use you projectile hate to capture his Point. Use your CC skills and pressure him so he need to sweap out off the Kit to survive. Outside of all this you could also use walls n stuff xd. Just many ways to survive. The only Situation when its Just Impossible is a plus one by him, a Teamfight while he not get targed, a instand burst out off stealth. Rest should be your favor matchup tho. (At least when it comes to on node Fights)

only if there's a big pillar in the middle of the point, oh wait, the point is a big open space. lol

also how you can even hope to touch it now with curve lines if you cant even get to him in straight line...lol

[Zuko.7132]

20 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

  

Cutting this post down because legnth. 

I agree with you that grenades deal disproportionately high damage. Both compared to other auto attacks, and compared to the rest of Engi's kit. 

My only problem is when people who point this out while ignoring the sleuth of nerfs that forced Engi into an over-reliance on grenades.  Or attempt to oversell how good they actually are. They're strong, but as far as auto attacks go, calling them brainless is... strange considereing other auto attacks auto aim while these take some amount of skill/effort to land in hectic combat. (You didn't say this. Just pointing it out because it comes up a lot when nades are brought up)

I'm also painfully aware of Anet's trend of nerfing something that props a class up without any form of compensation. 

Like they did when they neutered rifle, and gave core power engi nothing. It was finally playable for all of 2 months, but community whine got it nerfed back into the dirt. 

For that reason I'd like them to rework the things that got broke/overnerfed first before touching nades. 

If you noticed, I called for scrapper buffs and nade nerfs in my opening post. Core engi could certainly use some buffs too. I'm aware that nades are carrying scrapper. That's not healthy.

[Stalima.5490]

1 hour ago, Zuko.7132 said:

If you noticed, I called for scrapper buffs and nade nerfs in my opening post. Core engi could certainly use some buffs too. I'm aware that nades are carrying scrapper. That's not healthy.

You may not realise this but it is not the grenades carrying the scrapper, I had basically been doing the exact same nonesense well over a year before the grenade version appeared, the only difference is that I would use literally every single weapon except the grenades because it was funny when people die to an engineer who isn't using grenades making whatever that thing is overpowered immediately and unconditionally.

[Zuko.7132]

10 minutes ago, Stalima.5490 said:

You may not realise this but it is not the grenades carrying the scrapper, I had basically been doing the exact same nonesense well over a year before the grenade version appeared, the only difference is that I would use literally every single weapon except the grenades because it was funny when people die to an engineer who isn't using grenades making whatever that thing is overpowered immediately and unconditionally.

I mean you can do it with prybar, but if you miss the prybar, you're not a threat for a while.

[Stalima.5490]

3 minutes ago, Zuko.7132 said:

I mean you can do it with prybar, but if you miss the prybar, you're not a threat for a while.

I half expect people to slap a net turret down for that one

[Waffles.5632]

On 6/4/2023 at 1:39 PM, Kuma.1503 said:

 They're strong, but as far as auto attacks go, calling them brainless is... strange considereing other auto attacks auto aim while these take some amount of skill/effort to land in hectic combat.

Just wanted to chime in and say that there is a setting under combat IIRC where all your ground targeted AOE's automatically get cast on your selected target, and with this setting on grenades do become pretty brainless because you can kite and just spam 1 with near 100% accuracy.

Idk if many engi's play with this setting on or not though because it's pretty niche and really only works for nades since you can throw them behind you.

[Kuma.1503]

5 hours ago, Waffles.5632 said:

Just wanted to chime in and say that there is a setting under combat IIRC where all your ground targeted AOE's automatically get cast on your selected target, and with this setting on grenades do become pretty brainless because you can kite and just spam 1 with near 100% accuracy.

Idk if many engi's play with this setting on or not though because it's pretty niche and really only works for nades since you can throw them behind you.

Near 100% accuracy until people gain swiftness, superspeed, or start moving perpendicularly to you. It's a good setting when you're kiting against someone moving directly at you in a straight line. Otherwise, you want to lead your target like you would with any delayed ground target AoE. You also want to be conscious to toggle it off before throwing your elixirs. Otherwise you'll end up tossing them at the enemy. 

[Master Ketsu.4569]

The real issue isn't the damage or AoE, but the fact that the skills do not require target facing.

This is why engie builds that use nades feel so abusive. Both nade scrapper and nade holo can run away with superspeed while throwing grenades behind themselves. This is bad for balance for the same reason that pretty much anything that allows you to attack and defend at the same time is bad for balance. It enables very low risk high reward uninteractive gameplay.

In fact they could even BUFF grenade damage, assuming they fixed this problem, and it would be fine.

 

Edited June 8, 2023 by Master Ketsu.4569

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

On 5/26/2023 at 8:52 PM, bethekey.8314 said:

Sure, just a screenshot would do. But with hard evidence, how could people make ridiculous claims anymore?

I'm using this from now on.

Vulnerabipity is now canon.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Unpopular opinion time: Bring back toughness amulets. Remove the hard CC damage nerfs from Feb2020 and scale them down to 2/3rds of their pre Feb2020 values.

[Flowki.7194]

On 6/3/2023 at 5:58 PM, felix.2386 said:

tbh tho, that scrapper build is so squishy/nade damage is justifiable

what's making it work is super speed and stealth.

which explains how mobility like super speed/teleport and stealth are so op.

it will allow anything to run super glass and still work.

and is single-handedly carrying nade scrappers' playability and sustain. if you nerf nade damage it's gonna do irrelevant damage when Engi actually builds for more balanced builds.

 

This is it, pure glass cannon specs have like 11-15k hp, but that is mostly irreliven, it can be quite crutchy as you can get in some really bad positions, spew out there 2 second burst, then get out before most other classes can even begin ramping up any significant dmg against you (so effective hp is infinate). As long as you let some other team mates go into the fight first, let people get a little distracted.. you can hit and run with the burst almost freely. The only reliable counter is like countering thief, watch carefully for him comming in, and try to pressure him early so he has to leave before he does significant dmg, don't chase, kill the rest of his team. Its not that simple thuugh, since the burst specs also have ranged/stealthed stuns, and can focus you, there only threat, a lot harder than a thief. Aside from that, it is only really mistakes on the glass cannon side, getting too greedy, going in too early, etc, than counter it. Superspeed hit and run is really quite a crutchy playstyle, you don't have to be good at 1v1, and you don't have to be good in the mitigation of dmg in group fights. You just have to know when to go in, how to spew out your burst, don't get greedy, get out.

 

Still, Id rather play against scrappers than power necros. There is much more room for error on the scrappers part. I will say though, the one thing I personally thought was kitten when playing scrapper was the shredder gyro, its just free combos for no effort.. while doing significant dmg.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 10, 2023 by Flowki.7194

[Stalima.5490]

I do hope the developers are remembering that the faster you make gameplay, the more sensitive it becomes to even the slightest changes.

[Leonidrex.5649]

On 5/28/2023 at 3:31 AM, bethekey.8314 said:

Well as someone who actually went and tested it on a Heavy Golem, the 4000 figure is overblown. I'm not sure I ever broke 1000 per critical nade (3000 total). Then again, I hadn't yet stacked up 15+ vuln on the target.

Are we balancing around what's possible in the best case, unlikely scenario now? What kind of strategy is that? I say if the Warrior ate 5+ nade autos, then the Engi stacked might, the Engi deserves to hit a big auto and the Warrior deserves to be low for it.

These claims aren't helpful to the game, and neither is your backing of them.

ehh, every time people go to forum to prove their broken kitten class isnt capable of doing " x " damage they go on a kittening heavy golem, lowball numbers and do this SEEE I TOLD YOU shtick.
and here I go correcting again
Light armor class has base armor of 1888
Heavy golem has armor of 2597
what it means that if your skill does 3000 dmg to heavy golem it would have dealt 4126 dmg to low armor target ( ele, mesmer, necro ) other classes would take slightly less. High armor class ( warrior, rev, guard ) would take 3595 dmg instead,
When you count in vulnerability, might the number can go way over 4k

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

11 hours ago, Leonidrex.5649 said:

ehh, every time people go to forum to prove their broken kitten class isnt capable of doing " x " damage they go on a kittening heavy golem, lowball numbers and do this SEEE I TOLD YOU shtick.
and here I go correcting again
Light armor class has base armor of 1888
Heavy golem has armor of 2597
what it means that if your skill does 3000 dmg to heavy golem it would have dealt 4126 dmg to low armor target ( ele, mesmer, necro ) other classes would take slightly less. High armor class ( warrior, rev, guard ) would take 3595 dmg instead,
When you count in vulnerability, might the number can go way over 4k

This. To put it in perspective a fully glass high armor class has 2167 armor. The light golem has 2185 armor. 
So, people shouldn't just assume that the three golem types accurately reflect the three weight tiers of the professions. 
 

[bethekey.8314]

13 hours ago, Leonidrex.5649 said:

ehh, every time people go to forum to prove their broken kitten class isnt capable of doing " x " damage they go on a kittening heavy golem, lowball numbers and do this SEEE I TOLD YOU shtick.
and here I go correcting again
Light armor class has base armor of 1888
Heavy golem has armor of 2597
what it means that if your skill does 3000 dmg to heavy golem it would have dealt 4126 dmg to low armor target ( ele, mesmer, necro ) other classes would take slightly less. High armor class ( warrior, rev, guard ) would take 3595 dmg instead,
When you count in vulnerability, might the number can go way over 4k

1 hour ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

This. To put it in perspective a fully glass high armor class has 2167 armor. The light golem has 2185 armor. 
So, people shouldn't just assume that the three golem types accurately reflect the three weight tiers of the professions. 

The OP specifically stated almost 4k on Warrior, i.e. Heavy Armor. Someone also already made your points, but I don't think either of you read the rest of the thread.

I'll copy and paste the response, to make it easy for you:

On 5/30/2023 at 1:09 PM, Stalima.5490 said:

Attacking the heavy is like specifically for determining how fast you can kill a bunker build and not the average enemy.

Not really. Simply running a Demo amulet puts Warrior at or above the Heavy Golem armor. Total health doesn't matter in evaluating how hard something hits. And bunkers often utilize boons or active defenses instead of straight soaking damage. Protection alone probably makes most classes tankier than the Heavy Golem.

[Morwath.9817]

9 minutes ago, bethekey.8314 said:

Total health doesn't matter in evaluating how hard something hits. 

How so?

If something hits you for 4k and you have 12k health, then 4k damage is 33% of your health.

If something hits you for 4k and you have 30k health, then, well, you just *shrug*.