Can we make mortar actually practical?

[Rezzet.3614]

got tons of mortar ideas but i ll be extra humble and ask for just 1 thing

Double or triple projectile speed plez or give it 2500 range

in wvw its our only decent long range option and its only good when used while being pushed back because the projectiles are so slow , if you use it offensively and push forward you ll find out that the projectiles will be around 150-200 ish range infront of you by the time it lands , and thats without leaps blinks or super speed

[Vagrant.7206]

There's several problems with it:

• Nearly useless in any large blob fight, as the amount of reflects or projectile destruction render it irrelevant.
• Its damage isn't awful any more, but not good, and its effects are relatively mild compared to current powercreep.
• All attacks from it are ground-targeted, which is a major pain in the butt to aim if you're moving.
• Its arc is very high, but not high enough to circumvent walls or reflection skills.

If I was going to redesign it for WvW, I'd have it closer to operating to artillery, with each skill having a long cooldown and casting time, but decent unreflectable damage, so that an engineer could functionally operate as a mobile siege weapon, but weaker than siege golems.

If I was going to redesign it for PvE, I'd make the #1 skill fire automatically at the target and boost projectile speeds by 2 or 3 times. I'd like to see it turned into a rocket launcher, not a portable mortar.

If I was going to redesign it for PvP, I'd make the fields last longer and have longer durations of effect.

[Rezzet.3614]

yeah engineer's biggest problem is the lack of any ground targetted aoe that aint a projectile

could change mortar kit's skills except 1 to be Mines

[XenoSpyro.1780]

Just use it for the fields. Light blinding and chill is extremely useful.

[Josif.2015]

@Rezzet.3614 said:got tons of mortar ideas but i ll be extra humble and ask for just 1 thing

Double or triple projectile speed plez or give it 2500 range

I wish. The range on the Mortar Kit is fine, but the projectile velocity is what makes it weak. It's so slow that it feels like using the Grenade Kit without the awful Grenadier trait. Even after its' damage got increased, it's still doesn't feel like an elite kit.

[Silinsar.6298]

@Hoodie.1045 said:I wish. The range on the Mortar Kit is fine, but the projectile velocity is what makes it weak. It's so slow that it feels like using the Grenade Kit without the awful Grenadier trait. Even after its' damage got increased, it's still doesn't feel like an elite kit.

Mortar is a area denial and combo kit. Chill is amazing, so is blind. Elixir Shell allows you to heal combo in clutch moments, Poison shell is amazing for slowing revives. The range is mostly a trap, don't use it over 600-900 range when you want to hit things with the impact if there isn't very good reason for an enemy to stay there. It's not meant to cleave or deal damage at high range, rather you use it to set up the battlefield for yourself when you engage or you get engaged. E.g. when you assault a point in sPvP, throw some fields in there before you engage. The flight time makes it so that you pretty much arrive at the same time, getting to profit from the effects for a couple of seconds, giving you an edge in the fight. When you see a melee approaching or a Mesmer/Thief stealthing, throw some at your feet to discourage/better fend off a burst.For wvw zerg play, you can throw down fields in front of an approaching zerg or try to get some chill / blind going on casters to make them easier and less threatening targets. #5 always comes in handy as water field for a retreat/regroup. On some towers / keeps the range and the arc allow you to hit some spots you wouldn't otherwise be able to damage.

It doesn't have the immediate game changing nature of other elites, but it isn't hindered be cool downs that much and isn't negated by a single dodge. It's best suited for longer fights, fights that take place in a specific area or punishing melees and has some finishing utility. I think it's a good elite skill overall.

[Rezzet.3614]

@Silinsar.6298 said:

@Hoodie.1045 said:I wish. The range on the Mortar Kit is fine, but the projectile velocity is what makes it weak. It's so slow that it feels like using the Grenade Kit without the awful Grenadier trait. Even after its' damage got increased, it's still doesn't feel like an elite kit.

Mortar is a area denial and combo kit. Chill is amazing, so is blind. Elixir Shell allows you to heal combo in clutch moments, Poison shell is amazing for slowing revives. The range is mostly a trap, don't use it over 600-900 range when you want to hit things with the impact if there isn't very good reason for an enemy to stay there. It's not meant to cleave or deal damage at high range, rather you use it to set up the battlefield for yourself when you engage or you get engaged. E.g. when you assault a point in sPvP, throw some fields in there before you engage. The flight time makes it so that you pretty much arrive at the same time, getting to profit from the effects for a couple of seconds, giving you an edge in the fight. When you see a melee approaching or a Mesmer/Thief stealthing, throw some at your feet to discourage/better fend off a burst.For wvw zerg play, you can throw down fields in front of an approaching zerg or try to get some chill / blind going on casters to make them easier and less threatening targets. #5 always comes in handy as water field for a retreat/regroup. On some towers / keeps the range and the arc allow you to hit some spots you wouldn't otherwise be able to damage.

It doesn't have the immediate game changing nature of other elites, but it isn't hindered be cool downs that much and isn't negated by a single dodge. It's best suited for longer fights, fights that take place in a specific area or punishing melees and has some finishing utility. I think it's a good elite skill overall.

your argument sounded nice on paper until you consider , Elementalist, Necromancer,Mesmer,Guardianall have pulsing field skills that do way more than all our mortar fields combined at once , as long range non projectile AoE with similiar cooldowns as mortar kit'sBlind and chill are nice but nothing as useful as Weakness boon/condi conversion + damage.

none of these profession's fields have a 3+s flight time , 1500 range is useless on our mortar because by the time it reaches its destination theres either no target or you already arrived at said destination on foot

if we're to keep mortar kit with its slow flight time and as a field dispenser kit then the radius needs to be increased to 300 as well as apply conditions every 1/2 second

but to be fair i wouldnt mind it if they raised the arc based on range like rocket turret toolbelt so we could lob mortar shells over WvW walls

[TheWolf.1602]

just make mortar kit unblockable through Orbital Command

[LegohBrave.1823]

I'm using Mortar over supply crate for wvw. mortar 5 is a good 6 second water field with pulsing heals. the 2 3 and 4 skills are great to spam and cycle. It's not terrible, but could be better yeah.

[Dediggefedde.4961]

@Vagrant.7206 said:

• Its arc is very high, but not high enough to circumvent walls or reflection skills.

The arc is in fact high enough to get over guardian's wall of reflection and well placed can get on top of walls and inside the gap above tower gates in WvW. That's nice to target those mist-relying mages behind the gates. ^^

Unblockable projectiles would be nice... maybe just 2-5 so reflects don't work on them anymore.increased speed wouldn't mean much in the current reflect heavy meta in an offensive playstyle. As a defense mortar will be used mostly in close combat to fight on top of the chill or blind field or get a water field inside the group.

[Silinsar.6298]

@Rezzet.3614 said:your argument sounded nice on paper until you consider , Elementalist, Necromancer,Mesmer,Guardianall have pulsing field skills that do way more than all our mortar fields combined at once , as long range non projectile AoE with similiar cooldowns as mortar kit's

Which combo field of these classes heals, poisons, chills, blinds and deals damage at the same time with a comparable CD?As for elementalist, Endothermic Shell compares well to Frozen Ground, it's delayed and has lesser shorter chill, but also deals damage and only has half the cool down. It also does the chilling part of Well of Recall better (longer), no quickness but again it has less than half the CD.Flash shell is compares very well to Well of Darkness imo, blinds as much in the same radius, much shorter CD, damage on impact.Poison Shell is a poor man's Choking Gas, but does it's job when you want to slow down people ressing someone.Elixir Shell is a weaker version of Geyser (higher CD, healing needs more time).

All in all the skills can hold their ground in comparison to some utility and weapon skills, but keep in mind you can also use them at any time. A Thief would have to switch to SB for 10sec to Poison downed players, Eles likewise lose their ability to DPS when switching to water. Utility skills don't have this problem but require a whole slot for one aspect of what Mortar can do. A utility slot can be just as important as an elite one. And even if some skills seem underwhelming compared to others, mind that in their function as combo fields they work just as well.

@Rezzet.3614 said:Blind and chill are nice but nothing as useful as Weakness boon/condi conversion + damage.Wait, are you comparing Mortar to Scourge shroud? That's a integral part of the professions design that requires a secondary resource. Mortar is a single skill.

@Rezzet.3614 said:none of these profession's fields have a 3+s flight time , 1500 range is useless on our mortar because by the time it reaches its destination theres either no target or you already arrived at said destination on foot

Non of these come with as little commitment as being 1/5 of a skill you can use any time. And as I said, don't get tempted to use it at high range unless you're really confident you'll need your fields there. The flight time can also be to your advantage, because you can set up the fields at a moment you wouldn't do anything else anyway (out of range) and when you're there you get to use them longer as they'll start shortly before you're there. Also, it doesn't have to be useful at range in every situation to be a good elite skill. Many elites are situational and potentially wasted. Don't see Mortar as something that is supposed to single-handedly pump up engi's zerg capabilities to Scourge level. It's not. Mortar is a low profile elite skill that doesn't have easily spotted immediate impact because it instead focuses on providing little things frequently over a longer amount of time. It's a combo field package that provides utility you wouldn't otherwise get that easily for a lot of different situations. And it does that well.

@Rezzet.3614 said:but to be fair i wouldnt mind it if they raised the arc based on range like rocket turret toolbelt so we could lob mortar shells over WvW wallsThat would raise a whole lot of new problems as far as defensive siege placement is concerned. Where are people going to place defensive siege if it isn't even safe behind walls?As for potential adjustments to Mortar I'd rather like something that makes it more reliable do what it does, creating combo fields. The field generation could be made unblockable (but the ticks and impact damage not). E.g. the projectile could still be blocked and reflected (as a normal mortar shot maybe) and the field would be generated where it was blocked.

[Zaraki.5784]

It needs a complete rework, it's a useless skill, not just in wvw but in every game mode.

[Rezzet.3614]

@Silinsar.6298 said:

@Rezzet.3614 said:your argument sounded nice on paper until you consider , Elementalist, Necromancer,Mesmer,Guardianall have pulsing field skills that do way more than all our mortar fields combined at once , as long range non projectile AoE with similiar cooldowns as mortar kit's

Which combo field of these classes heals, poisons, chills, blinds and deals damage at the same time with a comparable CD?As for elementalist, Endothermic Shell compares well to Frozen Ground, it's delayed and has lesser shorter chill, but also deals damage and only has half the cool down. It also does the chilling part of Well of Recall better (longer), no quickness but again it has less than half the CD.Flash shell is compares very well to Well of Darkness imo, blinds as much in the same radius, much shorter CD, damage on impact.Poison Shell is a poor man's Choking Gas, but does it's job when you want to slow down people ressing someone.Elixir Shell is a weaker version of Geyser (higher CD, healing needs more time).

All in all the skills can hold their ground in comparison to some utility and weapon skills, but keep in mind you can also use them at any time. A Thief would have to switch to SB for 10sec to Poison downed players, Eles likewise lose their ability to DPS when switching to water. Utility skills don't have this problem but require a whole slot for one aspect of what Mortar can do. A utility slot can be just as important as an elite one. And even if some skills seem underwhelming compared to others, mind that in their function as combo fields they work just as well.

@Rezzet.3614 said:Blind and chill are nice but nothing as useful as Weakness boon/condi conversion + damage.Wait, are you comparing Mortar to Scourge shroud? That's a integral part of the professions design that requires a secondary resource. Mortar is a single skill.

@Rezzet.3614 said:none of these profession's fields have a 3+s flight time , 1500 range is useless on our mortar because by the time it reaches its destination theres either no target or you already arrived at said destination on foot

Non of these come with as little commitment as being 1/5 of a skill you can use any time. And as I said, don't get tempted to use it at high range unless you're really confident you'll need your fields there. The flight time can also be to your advantage, because you can set up the fields at a moment you wouldn't do anything else anyway (out of range) and when you're there you get to use them longer as they'll start shortly before you're there. Also, it doesn't have to be useful at range in every situation to be a good elite skill. Many elites are situational and potentially wasted. Don't see Mortar as something that is supposed to single-handedly pump up engi's zerg capabilities to Scourge level. It's not. Mortar is a low profile elite skill that doesn't have easily spotted immediate impact because it instead focuses on providing little things frequently over a longer amount of time. It's a combo field package that provides utility you wouldn't otherwise get that easily for a lot of different situations. And it does that well.

@Rezzet.3614 said:but to be fair i wouldnt mind it if they raised the arc based on range like rocket turret toolbelt so we could lob mortar shells over WvW wallsThat would raise a whole lot of new problems as far as defensive siege placement is concerned. Where are people going to place defensive siege if it isn't even safe behind walls?As for potential adjustments to Mortar I'd rather like something that makes it more reliable do what it does, creating combo fields. The field generation could be made unblockable (but the ticks and impact damage not). E.g. the projectile could still be blocked and reflected (as a normal mortar shot maybe) and the field would be generated where it was blocked.

eles can swap attunements so they can alternate between dps and support , so in this aspect they are similiar to mortar, however their skills offer much more , simply because of the wider radiuses and the fact they are non projectile ground AoE

and no i wasnt even comparing to scourge shroud, necromancer has unblockable marks, and Wells and an anti projectile weakness pulsing Corruption

i meant arced enough to be able to use the mortar when defending from over walls, not to be able to attack siege behind walls, my current stand in that topic is that all current AoE needs nerfing right now, at least targetting via snap cast or whatever exploit users do currently allowing them to place aoe's directly over walls , you can tell when someone casts the skill against the wall and over based on the center of the aoe

your other suggestion would be nice but, i feel like mortar still undeperforms, but anything is better than what we got currently

[Malhavoc Adhamar.3675]

In WvW it would benefit from having the ability to pierce reflect/projectile destroying barriers, either as default or as an addition to the Orbital Command Strike trait. I'd also be tempted to allow Mortar 1 to benefit from Grenadier (Just the projectile velocity) and add an extra onto Short Fuses to increase the field duration/size of Mortar 2-5.

Overall its not in a bad place but it could do with a few tweaks so it feels like its worth the elite slot and not just taken so a scrapper or holosmith has a long range option.

[Rezzet.3614]

upon trying mortar with a mortar build all day today , i gotta say we really cant ask for much upgrades i run marauders gear , bloodlust+ strength sigils and mortar as a backliner after spellbreaker bubbles wear out demolished enemies landing 3k-3.5k blasts , cant really ask for arc raising much as i was able to shoot mortar bombs over the SMC inner wall by hopping when shooting , sadly my dps isnt consistent because i sacrificed runes of the packwich gave 130 power and precision for durability and sigil of accuracy for strength to keep scrapper's quickness on might stack grandmaster

and to clarify before anyone calls the damage OP , i had 20 stacks of might , 25 stacks of bloodlust, and damage bonuses from traits, 7%crit damag from explosives, 120 power from explosives, 10% damage when hitting vulnerabiity targets10 of those might stacks was via utilities , so i was a glass cannon sitting duck when i went all out on enemies

[Rezzet.3614]

the only thing right now i can flat out say needs a buff is Orbital strike toolbelt, it should deal damage similiar on par to rocket turret's toolbelt, mortar kit lacks a proper burst skill , orbital strike has all the requirements for it except the damage , 3s wind up time, 40s CD, however this change should only apply to the toolbelt orbital strike and not the trait one as that one has a 15s cd .

[Zefrost.3425]

Orbital Strike does need a buff, I can agree to that; but everything else about the mortar kit is perfectly balanced. Anyone saying that the mortar skills are bad does not understand how to use it properly.

• The poison field is used for slowing revives or fighting inside of to apply weakness with leaps or blasts.
• The chill field should only be used when either you are trying to run away (frost aura with combos/chill in general) or you are trying to slow opponent from running. Can also just be spammed as AOE in large fights or against mirages.
• The blind field is amazing for fighting inside of against other melee types and because it's a light field your whirl and blast finishers remove conditions. Your mortar 1 spam skill can also be used to stand point blank against a scourge by standing in the light field and spamming 11111 at your feet (assuming you used your other condi removal abilities already)
• The heal is a heal.

And obviously mortars 1500 range is good for destroying siege in keeps/towers.

Here's something you most definitely don't know: Bind the "lock ground targeting" hotkey to use mortar kit to its fullest potential. By doing so and by then (usually, not always) standing at maximum range and having the target locked on siege, you can arc over most walls to destroy siege that most other classes can't. And there's more: for whatever reason, targeting the player that is using the siege gives the mortar an even higher arc, thus allowing you to attack even more siege if it is being manned.

[Rezzet.3614]

@"Zefrost.3425" said:Orbital Strike does need a buff, I can agree to that; but everything else about the mortar kit is perfectly balanced. Anyone saying that the mortar skills are bad does not understand how to use it properly.

• The poison field is used for slowing revives or fighting inside of to apply weakness with leaps or blasts.
• The chill field should only be used when either you are trying to run away (frost aura with combos/chill in general) or you are trying to slow opponent from running. Can also just be spammed as AOE in large fights or against mirages.
• The blind field is amazing for fighting inside of against other melee types and because it's a light field your whirl and blast finishers remove conditions. Your mortar 1 spam skill can also be used to stand point blank against a scourge by standing in the light field and spamming 11111 at your feet (assuming you used your other condi removal abilities already)
• The heal is a heal.

And obviously mortars 1500 range is good for destroying siege in keeps/towers.

Here's something you most definitely don't know: Bind the "lock ground targeting" hotkey to use mortar kit to its fullest potential. By doing so and by then (usually, not always) standing at maximum range and having the target locked on siege, you can arc over most walls to destroy siege that most other classes can't. And there's more: for whatever reason, targeting the player that is using the siege gives the mortar an even higher arc, thus allowing you to attack even more siege if it is being manned.

agreed

havent tried the fancy targetting you mention though ,im guessing you mean "Snap cast to target" or "use ground cast at maximum range"

[Lunateric.3708]

Orbital Strike and the trait related to it couldn't be weaker. Other than that I think mortar kit just needs more poison on poison shell and that's about it.

It would benefit us if the toolbelt for mortar was throw gunk instead of the overly clunky Orbital Strike.

[Rezzet.3614]

@Lunateric.3708 said:Orbital Strike and the trait related to it couldn't be weaker. Other than that I think mortar kit just needs more poison on poison shell and that's about it.

It would benefit us if the toolbelt for mortar was throw gunk instead of the overly clunky Orbital Strike.

i think all it needs is massive damage at least on the main skill not the trait one, its got a 3s wind up time for a reason its meant to force groups to scatter for a second, and after having used rocket turret's toolbelt i think bringing its damage on par to that would be perfect