Grenade Barrage

[God.2708]

33 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

More like this: Even higher spike

Something like +20k vs 2.6k armor before all the damage modifiers and vulnerability. From stealth.

So after a bit of investigating, toolbelt skills use weapon strength (best I can tell). That means we're looking at 1050 weapon strength average instead of 690.5. That's uh... a huge difference. Like 50% more damage difference almost. (Your build against a 2.6k armor target is hitting for ~15k just from the nades) Which explains a lot.

I still stand that explosive entrance should probably be nerfed to not crit for consistencies sake, but I frankly see no reason grenade barrage should have the same power modifier as well of calamity, a skill that takes 3 seconds to actually deal its damage with a worse weapon strength.

Edited October 16, 2021 by God.2708

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

1 minute ago, God.2708 said:

So after a bit of investigating, toolbelt skills use weapon strength (best I can tell). That means we're looking at 1050 weapon strength average instead of 690.5. That's uh... a huge difference. Like 50% more damage difference almost. (Your build against a 2.6k armor target is hitting for ~15k just from the nades) Which explains a lot.

I still stand that explosive entrance should probably be nerfed to not crit for consistencies sake, but I frankly see no reason grenade barrage should have the same power modifier as well of calamity, a skill that takes 3 seconds to actually deal its damage with a worse weapon strength.

Because Feb2020 was supposed to tone down all the damage, but Gbarage got forgotten. It's already been nerfed heavily in PvP, and it is beyond me why that nerf hasn't made its way to WvW yet.

[Burial.1958]

I also do not know why this broken mess is still in the game. Really unfun to roaming at the moment when this grenade spammers are everywhere. 

[Xenesis.6389]

There have been some idiotic revamps for engineers in the past couple years, especially for scrapper.

 

Explosive entrance - first attack fires off a free aoe that can crit and refreshes on a dodge, no cooldown, and for some reason has a 1.25 coefficient in pve/wvw but 0.9 in pvp, why? Yet Mirage gets a dodge nerf to their mirage cloak mechanic that evades, Mesmers get a nerf to evasive mirror that reflect projectiles on evade from 2s to 1.5s duration and then cooldown from 1.5s to 10s. But this trait gets no cooldown, refresh on dodge, free aoe damage that can crit?

 

Impact savant - you get barrier for doing damage, no cooldown, and for some reason it's 15% conversion for pve/wvw, but 10% in pvp, why? In fact why was this trait changed from providing bonus damage while having barrier to this version in the first place? They said it was to give survivability for the tanky scrapper role, yet in wvw the tanky scrappers are running minstrels you know tank/heal stats and wet noodle dps, so instead of giving them bonus damage to I dunno maybe get bags easier, they give them more barrier for their noodle damage. But guess who benefits the most off this now, why, the glassy scrappers who can now run as glassy as possible thanks to traits like this providing a ton of defense, /slow clap.

 

I still to this day don't understand why Anet thinks it's ok to give free one shots to stealth classes. But don't expect fixes for any of this, they're too busy developing stuff like the dolphin dash on bladesworn for next expansion.

[Twilight Tempest.7584]

3 hours ago, displayname.8315 said:

True one shot boys usually play core thief.

Then why did you say earlier:

17 hours ago, displayname.8315 said:

You are both trying your hardest to reduce fights down to a single hit.

...when you know I'm running Daredevil (not core Thief) and SA, not CS or Deadly Arts?

3 hours ago, displayname.8315 said:

I use staff bounds with guaranteed crit and it's 10k almost every time with plenty of toughness and also more vitality than him.

Using daredevil to it's full potential makes use of the nearly unending dodge rolls and also staff evades.  Pair it with the runeset named for and created for daredevil.

How would your build have fared in my clip above?  Still instagib I think, unless it can tank 20K from stealth.

Not knocking your build--it sounds interesting--but as @Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

3 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

That combo fully  buffed can instagib everything but a full  minstrel/Sentinel warrior.

Can anyone name another build that can currently instagib (from stealth) everything but a full minstrel/Sentinel warrior, AND have enough juice to duel down another player?  No?  See the problem?

[displayname.8315]

@Twilight Tempest.7584I said your build was trying to be one shot not that it was optimized or working.

 

My daredevil build probably would have survived the invisible hit.  You did survive for a brief moment so it's pretty safe to say with toughness added you could react.

 

Projectiles are the scissors to the paper daredevil so you do have be careful about your health and keep good positioning.

 

Solo play is always more of a paper rock scissors game.  If you ever decide to shadow a zerg daredevil is a great aggression class.

 

Most zergs just stand back and let the enemy pre-buff and push at their convenience, which is a mistake.  Need those aggressors.

[crewthief.8649]

9 hours ago, displayname.8315 said:

I use staff bounds with guaranteed crit and it's 10k almost every time with plenty of toughness and also more vitality than him.

 

Using daredevil to it's full potential makes use of the nearly unending dodge rolls and also staff evades.  Pair it with the runeset named for and created for daredevil.

 

True one shot boys usually play core thief.

Staff… 🤣🤣🤣

GTFO. Thread is about Grenade Barrage and Explosive Entrance. Pointing at Thief staff as justification for Grenade Barrage being busted is disingenuous and ridiculous, to be completely honest.

[Twilight Tempest.7584]

1 hour ago, crewthief.8649 said:

Staff… 🤣🤣🤣

GTFO. Thread is about Grenade Barrage and Explosive Entrance. Pointing at Thief staff as justification for Grenade Barrage being busted is disingenuous and ridiculous, to be completely honest.

It's amazing how much being on thief in clips is derail bait.

Like, had I been on any other class, this thread would be half as long.

[ASP.8093]

5 hours ago, Twilight Tempest.7584 said:

It's amazing how much being on thief in clips is derail bait.

Like, had I been on any other class, this thread would be half as long.

Clearly you should add an ele skill bar as an OBS overlay.

[displayname.8315]

8 hours ago, Twilight Tempest.7584 said:

It's amazing how much being on thief in clips is derail bait.

Like, had I been on any other class, this thread would be half as long.

Not so much about thief/DD as the low skill gameplay and poor build choices.  You guys have clearly never seen a competent thief.  Watch a stream sometime.  Not hard to find a streaming thief roamer.

 

No it does not take a full set of toughness main stat armor.  This DD guy survived the initial shot with 2k health but his build is pure glass and he deserves to go down.  0 toughness 1-shot boys should not survive a full stealth bomb, that would really be a broken game.

Edited October 17, 2021 by displayname.8315

[God.2708]

11 minutes ago, displayname.8315 said:

Not so much about thief/DD as the low skill gameplay and poor build choices.  You guys have clearly never seen a competent thief.  Watch a stream sometime.  Not hard to find a streaming thief roamer.

 

No it does not take a full set of toughness main stat armor.  This DD guy survived the initial shot with 2k health but his build is pure glass and he deserves to go down.  0 toughness 1-shot boys should not survive a full stealth bomb, that would really be a broken game.

Your argument is made irrelevant by the earlier calculations. A full glass nade engi can happily drop a target with 3k toughness and 21k health provided they don't have protection up. No one cares that a berserker ele or thief dies in one hit to basically any well built burst in the game. The point of this topic is the line where burst is to much, and you aren't arguing about it in good faith because you can't even seem to draw the line correctly.

Just run the numbers. A properly set up nade burst, with explosive entrance, will hit a full minstrel's firebrand using monk runes for just under 18k (again assuming no protection). Said firebrand has 17975 health. Is a healbrand a '0 toughness 1-shot boy'?

[displayname.8315]

1 hour ago, God.2708 said:

Your argument is made irrelevant by the earlier calculations. A full glass nade engi can happily drop a target with 3k toughness and 21k health provided they don't have protection up. No one cares that a berserker ele or thief dies in one hit to basically any well built burst in the game. The point of this topic is the line where burst is to much, and you aren't arguing about it in good faith because you can't even seem to draw the line correctly.

Just run the numbers. A properly set up nade burst, with explosive entrance, will hit a full minstrel's firebrand using monk runes for just under 18k (again assuming no protection). Said firebrand has 17975 health. Is a healbrand a '0 toughness 1-shot boy'?

I guess that's after the automatic aegis is already removed by some other attack then?  Hmm this senario is getting very specific to justify your argument.  Do solo roaming firebrands really use monk runes?  Who even roams on a solo firebrand? 

 

I guess you are talking about a zerg build.  Zerg builds don't really need to account for the anything goes of solo gameplay.  If they actually go into downstate with all their buffs/aegis/barrier then they can still be got back up as long as they stayed in position.

 

Not even going to get into the different runesets like rebirth, or the various +10% max health setups.

 

Instead of going to a meta website and doing a carbon copy of whatever they say to do I would suggest reading thru all the runesets on the trader or leggy armor, then reading thru all the various build tree options, then every utility and elite.  Really think about a strategy and build your own lightsaber.

[God.2708]

1 minute ago, displayname.8315 said:

I guess that's after the automatic aegis is already removed by some other attack then?  Hmm this senario is getting very specific to justify your argument.  Do solo roaming firebrands really use monk runes?  Who even roams on a solo firebrand? 

 

I guess you are talking about a zerg build.  Zerg builds don't really need to account for the anything goes of solo gameplay.  If they actually go into downstate with all their buffs/aegis/barrier then they can still be got back up as long as they stayed in position.

 

Not even going to get into the different runesets like rebirth, or the various +10% max health setups.

 

Instead of going to a meta website and doing a carbon copy of whatever they say to do I would suggest reading thru all the runesets on the trader or leggy armor, then reading thru all the various build tree options, then every utility and elite.  Really think about a strategy and build your own lightsaber.

Why do that when I can just move the goal posts like you are?

[displayname.8315]

47 minutes ago, God.2708 said:

Why do that when I can just move the goal posts like you are?

Yeah let's just laser focus on scrapper vs monk rune solo firebrands with aegis already stripped.

 

This 0 toughness thief guy basically survived the 1-shot build, just needed a tiny bit of toughness and maybe 1k more hp, but somehow the math tells you that a player with toughness and more than 17.9k hp will be insta-downed.

Edited October 17, 2021 by displayname.8315

[ASP.8093]

4 hours ago, displayname.8315 said:

0 toughness 1-shot boys should not survive a full stealth bomb, that would really be a broken game.

Did you miss the February patch? There's barely any one-shot builds anymore. Partially because Anet wanted to kill that "full stealth bomb" you mentioned (and good riddance to it). In particular, the Mara Daredevil with 17k hp isn't much of a one-shot build; its Backstab output against glassy targets tops out at like 8k.

[displayname.8315]

10 minutes ago, ASP.8093 said:

Did you miss the February patch? There's barely any one-shot builds anymore. Partially because Anet wanted to kill that "full stealth bomb" you mentioned (and good riddance to it). In particular, the Mara Daredevil with 17k hp isn't much of a one-shot build; its Backstab output against glassy targets tops out at like 8k.

Yep I don't really have a problem with grenades or thieves.  I mean they fulfill their roles as expected.  With a decend build the game plays fair enough for me.   Getting focus targeted in the middle of a fight happens and wvw is a team game after all.  No matter how much "roamers" want it to be a giant 1v1 map.  /bow

[Twilight Tempest.7584]

6 hours ago, displayname.8315 said:

Not so much about thief/DD as the low skill gameplay and poor build choices.  You guys have clearly never seen a competent thief.  Watch a stream sometime.  Not hard to find a streaming thief roamer.

By and large, anyone who survives a zero-tell stealth bomb didn't survive because of their "skill" but because of their build.  You're saying as much here:

6 hours ago, displayname.8315 said:

No it does not take a full set of toughness main stat armor.  This DD guy survived the initial shot with 2k health but his build is pure glass and he deserves to go down.  0 toughness 1-shot boys should not survive a full stealth bomb, that would really be a broken game.

And therein lies the inherent problem with such stealth bombs: the only practicable counter is building for it--something you emphasize in almost every post here.  Since when should every roamer be required to build for the 10% of players exploiting busted builds that are undeniable damage level outliers within the current meta, to the detriment of being able to handle the other 90% of encounters?

Fully investing in vitality through Marauders stats and Brawler's Resilience is a choice to avoid melting against the abundance of condi-spam in the game, be it in small or large groups.  Something far more prevalent than busted small-scale stealth bombs.  Still, that does not mean the latter should continue existing when it is clear Anet's intent was to remove them from the game.

Also, you keep referring to my build as "pure glass" and "1-shot boys" while in the same breath acknowledging it isn't actually built for one shots.  That's because it IS built into a balance between survivability (Shadow Arts, Brawler's Resilience, Maruader's stats, etc.) and doing damage.  It has no actual one-shot potential, and yet, being built to cover 90% of WvW scenarios, it's helpless against things that are objectively busted like current EE + GB from stealth.  Most professions and builds are.

I do appreciate your suggestions and have considered trying them, but it isn't easy without a set of legendary armor.  With any luck, Anet will finally do what's long overdue, well before I get my hands on my first legendary set.

[Simonoly.4352]

The thing is, Grenade Barrage is one of those skills that has been split between all game modes so clearly Anet intend for Grenade Barrage to perform like this in WvW. I do agree that the damage is rather obnoxious in its current form when used up close - though one shouldn't forget that a single blind can mitigate the whole barrage, which is an issue in itself. Honestly, it probably just needs to be redesigned to prevent both of the above.

Anyway, I think the barrier generation on Scrapper is a far more pressing issue anyway - I don't think a spec has had this level of immortality and damage together in WvW in quite some time, it's hilarious!

[Twilight Tempest.7584]

2 hours ago, Simonoly.4352 said:

The thing is, Grenade Barrage is one of those skills that has been split between all game modes so clearly Anet intend for Grenade Barrage to perform like this in WvW. I do agree that the damage is rather obnoxious in its current form when used up close - though one shouldn't forget that a single blind can mitigate the whole barrage, which is an issue in itself. Honestly, it probably just needs to be redesigned to prevent both of the above.

A single blind can mitigate any single skill attack (my Backstabs get blinded all the time).  That isn't unique to GB.  But you're not going to blind something you can't see coming from stealth, which is how GB (+EE) OHKOs tend to happen (as shown in my clips).

And given that Anet has nerfed all other OHKOs from stealth, this really seems to be an oversight, rather than something they actually want happening.

2 hours ago, Simonoly.4352 said:

Anyway, I think the barrier generation on Scrapper is a far more pressing issue anyway - I don't think a spec has had this level of immortality and damage together in WvW in quite some time, it's hilarious!

This is certainly an issue as well, and was discussed in this thread.  It's largely why this build can OHKO multiple players due to the AOE as well as stick around to finish any who survive.

The build's damage/sustain ratio is absolutely an outlier within the meta.  Nothing else comes close.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

Would there be compensatory damage buffs if grenade barrage gets nerfed?  I play a marauder scrapper in WvW quite often, and one of the things I noticed is that grenade barrage isn't just a high damage skill.  It's... the only high damage skill.  Seriously, look at everything in the engineer's toolbox:

 

Electro Whirl:  Used tactically for reflects, and rarely as a DPS skill.  Even then, it's only scale 1.36, which is about as much as the first two swings of the auto.

Rocket Charge:  Seems good at first, but because it doesn't benefit from quickness, making it barely better than the auto attack.

Shock Shield: Worse than auto attacking, used almost exclusively as a block.

Thunderclap: Effectively does no damage, since everyone steps out of it as soon as you use it.

Shredder Gyro: Takes too long.  6 seconds is about 5 seconds longer than it takes for most people to recognize shredder gyro and move out of range.

Holosmith: Their entire bar is below scale 1.0, with the exception of Photon Blitz at 1.6.  The sword has one decent skill with Radian Arc at 1.5, giving a pittance of 2 seconds of quickness on use.  The highest DPS available to holosmith is to auto in photon forge until you build up enough heat, then auto with sword until you lose too much heat.  Use Photon Blitz off cooldown.  Laserdisk is even slower than Shredder Gyro while also having half the range.

On Core Engi there is only a few skills worthy of note.  Blunderbuss is 1.31 and Jump Shot is 1.84.  Pry bar is 2.0, but that requires running the toolkit.  Finally, the 3 DPS grenade skills at 1.5 each.

 

No small wonder why most builds just use the rifle + grenade kit.  It's the only way to reliably do damage.  I don't know how you guys are getting such high numbers with grenade barrage.  On my explosives/alchemy marauder build with scholar runes and force sigil, I usually only hit around 8k with it.  Grenade barrage is the only thing I can put on my bar that will get me out of endless stalemates with rangers, eles, necromancers, revs, and other scrappers.  

[MedievalThings.5417]

With full zerk stats, the hardest I can hit is for 14k against a full zerk deadeye.  I can do 12k vs tempests, and roughly 8-10k on average (vs full zerk).  Backstab still hits me harder than that average as full minstrel.  I can't even count using both hands the number of other "instant deaths" that have happened to me from nearly every other class.  Every class has a <1 second kill combo, and some of those do upwards of 25k damage, even when I'm in my full minstrel set (which exceeds my total health) which is my normal play build.  There are condition builds that do more damage in the first second than grenade barrage does.

Edited October 21, 2021 by Ubi.4136

[Shroud.2307]

2 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

Would there be compensatory damage buffs if grenade barrage gets nerfed?  I play a marauder scrapper in WvW quite often, and one of the things I noticed is that grenade barrage isn't just a high damage skill.  It's... the only high damage skill.  Seriously, look at everything in the engineer's toolbox:

 

Electro Whirl:  Used tactically for reflects, and rarely as a DPS skill.  Even then, it's only scale 1.36, which is about as much as the first two swings of the auto.

Rocket Charge:  Seems good at first, but because it doesn't benefit from quickness, making it barely better than the auto attack.

Shock Shield: Worse than auto attacking, used almost exclusively as a block.

Thunderclap: Effectively does no damage, since everyone steps out of it as soon as you use it.

Shredder Gyro: Takes too long.  6 seconds is about 5 seconds longer than it takes for most people to recognize shredder gyro and move out of range.

Holosmith: Their entire bar is below scale 1.0, with the exception of Photon Blitz at 1.6.  The sword has one decent skill with Radian Arc at 1.5, giving a pittance of 2 seconds of quickness on use.  The highest DPS available to holosmith is to auto in photon forge until you build up enough heat, then auto with sword until you lose too much heat.  Use Photon Blitz off cooldown.  Laserdisk is even slower than Shredder Gyro while also having half the range.

On Core Engi there is only a few skills worthy of note.  Blunderbuss is 1.31 and Jump Shot is 1.84.  Pry bar is 2.0, but that requires running the toolkit.  Finally, the 3 DPS grenade skills at 1.5 each.

 

No small wonder why most builds just use the rifle + grenade kit.  It's the only way to reliably do damage.  I don't know how you guys are getting such high numbers with grenade barrage.  On my explosives/alchemy marauder build with scholar runes and force sigil, I usually only hit around 8k with it.  Grenade barrage is the only thing I can put on my bar that will get me out of endless stalemates with rangers, eles, necromancers, revs, and other scrappers.  

10.4k Pry Bar, 8.5k Jump Shot, 5.5k Throw Wrench all in one combo.
12k Pry Bar
6.9k + 7.1k Throw Wrench (both ways) = 14,146k
9.1k Thwack (3rd hit in Tool Kit auto attack chain)

Every class is capable of hitting 10k+ with multiple skills, sometimes in quick succession. The reason you don't see it very often is because the vast majority of players prefer to build defensively.
Marauder is a lot more popular than Berserker in WvW because it's the smarter choice, but it's still a defensive stat.

And I say the "smarter choice" because going fully offensive is rarely a good idea. Assuming equal skill, there aren't many situations that 2 - 4k extra damage on your hard hitting skills is going to determine the winner of the fight unless you catch them by surprise.

I don't just mean stat selection either though, a lot of players also prefer to use defensive traits. Shadow Arts, Blood Magic, Alchemy, Wilderness Survival, etc. are common trait lines for roamers to choose, all of which are defensive. You won't see crazy high damage on the majority of classes/builds unless you go all in (some exceptions apply - *cough* Soulbeast*).

And please for anyone else reading this, let's not make this a "let's nerf those Engi skills too!" discussion, lol. I have an entire folder of high damage screen caps. I can make any class look like it needs to be nerfed if I want to 😈.
I mean, how about this one? Totally balanced, right? You get me.

[Dawdler.8521]

3 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

Would there be compensatory damage buffs if grenade barrage gets nerfed?  I play a marauder scrapper in WvW quite often, and one of the things I noticed is that grenade barrage isn't just a high damage skill.  It's... the only high damage skill.  Seriously, look at everything in the engineer's toolbox:

 

Electro Whirl:  Used tactically for reflects, and rarely as a DPS skill.  Even then, it's only scale 1.36, which is about as much as the first two swings of the auto.

Rocket Charge:  Seems good at first, but because it doesn't benefit from quickness, making it barely better than the auto attack.

Shock Shield: Worse than auto attacking, used almost exclusively as a block.

Thunderclap: Effectively does no damage, since everyone steps out of it as soon as you use it.

Shredder Gyro: Takes too long.  6 seconds is about 5 seconds longer than it takes for most people to recognize shredder gyro and move out of range.

Holosmith: Their entire bar is below scale 1.0, with the exception of Photon Blitz at 1.6.  The sword has one decent skill with Radian Arc at 1.5, giving a pittance of 2 seconds of quickness on use.  The highest DPS available to holosmith is to auto in photon forge until you build up enough heat, then auto with sword until you lose too much heat.  Use Photon Blitz off cooldown.  Laserdisk is even slower than Shredder Gyro while also having half the range.

On Core Engi there is only a few skills worthy of note.  Blunderbuss is 1.31 and Jump Shot is 1.84.  Pry bar is 2.0, but that requires running the toolkit.  Finally, the 3 DPS grenade skills at 1.5 each.

 

No small wonder why most builds just use the rifle + grenade kit.  It's the only way to reliably do damage.  I don't know how you guys are getting such high numbers with grenade barrage.  On my explosives/alchemy marauder build with scholar runes and force sigil, I usually only hit around 8k with it.  Grenade barrage is the only thing I can put on my bar that will get me out of endless stalemates with rangers, eles, necromancers, revs, and other scrappers.  

I would settle for the kittening pistols firing at the rate Anet says they are firing instead of actually firing 50% slower.

[ArchonWing.9480]

9 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

I would settle for the kittening pistols firing at the rate Anet says they are firing instead of actually firing 50% slower.

Unfortunately, it seems like Necros stole that pistol with the Harbringer.

The kitten thing puts Engi pistol to shame, though it's not hard to put core engi weapons to shame.

Edited October 21, 2021 by ArchonWing.9480

[Khenzy.9348]

Granade damage (not just Granade Barrage) is completely busted.

The problem is that the Engineer throwing those granades is extremely tanky, with godly utility and high stability uptime while they do a crap ton of damage. It's the most overpowered roaming spec I've come across in a long long time.