Maybe instead of leaving the bomb behind on the ground it can become something a bit smaller that you attach to the enemy in melee range or at short range. Still have the timer on detonation but this time the circle on the ground moves while the player the bomb is attached to moves. Gives it a bit more of a dynamic feel.
You know what the bomb kits probably really good for? Keeping people the fuck away from you lol, melee wont want to touch you, and you could probably defend a capture point with ease by making it a very very bad idea for anyone to step inside that circle...
Personally, i would like to see a trait that will let you throw the bombs though, i think that alone would increase the uses of the bomb kit extremely well.
PS: This is probably what i'll be using on my engineer, i love me alchemy, and damn it i will use plenty of alchemy >=D!!
Well thats the problem, there are no "melee". Everyone has ranged weapons aswell, and everyone is pretty much just as effective with ranged as melee. (infact what most beta testers seem to claim is ranged is even a bit better overall). So sure, you force that warrior into a fight with his gun. But then you cant use your bomb kit and its basicly still useless.
Warrior chargs in with greatsword, you switch to bomb kit, warrior backs off and switches to gun. You are now forced to switch back to a ranged kit. Warrior is then free again to switch to a greatsword for some melee burst punishment (there is a slight cd i believe in switching weapons), and when you switch to bomb kit again he simply backs away.
And then we havent even talked about the problem with running in, slapping you and running out. They can do that fast enough (especially with a wide-arc melee weapon) to avoid bombs.
Maybe its usefull if you are running away from someone and they have to cross your bombs chasing you or something. Still, that all seems very situational. So ill probably try the bomb kit, but my gut tells me i wont like it and probably wont be using it.
Weapon swapping has a CD.
I hope you haven't forgotten my role in this little story. I'm the leading man. You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies.
If you give in to your impulses in this world, the price is that it changes your personality in the real world. The player and character are one and the same.
Yea bomb kits are definitely lackluster. Unless they do massive amounts of damage or get some more gimmicks tied in with them i cant see them being utilized as much as other things.
People who have PLAYED the game claim melee is a liability at the moment they played it. Perhaps liability is to strong of a word, but it is simply not as good as ranged. Melee is a likely to take more damage and has a harder time avoiding stuff while being far more limited in how mobile they can be with regards to how effective they remain. Some fights in dungeons have even been straigth up "you need range or you are pretty much hindering your team".
And what about WvW and the potentially large cluster of players? Id much rather skirmish from range and easily withdraw if im under presure then be forced to charge face first into the enemy team. That seriously shortens my life expectancy.
These claims have been pretty well supported with reasonable arguments and this is a piece of balancing Arenanet really has to look into.
GW have the track record of ranged being prefered over melee. It's nothing unusual imho. Melee in fights are more suited for the role of bruiser/tank. Loss of range compensated with better defenses and/or strong cc. That's the important thing to pay attention to when playing melee. Make sure you have good defenses. Without them you are better off staying at range.
My part in this story has been decided. And I will play it well.
Plant a bomb, switch to flamethrower, hit back draft to draw them in toward you and the bomb....ever thought that the bomb kit wasn't designed for one on one as its "utility"? Maybe use it at gates, plant timed bombs as enemies are running through a narrow arch.
The device kits are utilities, situational, just like turrets, they are not weapon replacements as such. If you choose tool belt (melee) as your weapon kit, bomb kit is perfect to complement it. In rvr you'll be in the middle of the action slapping people about, switch from tool belt to bomb kit, drop a glue bomb and a couple of others then switch back to your tool belt, use magnet to draw someone back in that's getting away. That's how I see the use of the bomb kit in rvr, especially defending a capture point because the enemy won't be running away. Don't forget, you can also get the trait which places a bomb at your feet when you dodge away, for that extra bit of utility. Having said all that, I probably won't be using the bomb kit at all.
We still do not know how melee will work and we won't until people are used to the way fights function without the trinity, etc. Personally, I think melee will be perfectly fine but we need a bit longer than a weekend of play to get used to the combat differences when it comes to melee. I think it just requires extra learning.
Exactly, thats one way to use bomb kit. But, bombs dont deal ludicrous amounts of damage and abilities like backdraft and magnetic field (or whatever, that Toolkit skill) have a cooldown. Besides, the idea you need to use other kits just to reliably get 1 bomb to actually hit.. well, be honest thats a bit silly isnt it?"
As a standalone kit, the bomb kit should be effective. If it is not then it needs to be tweaked. Again, im not sure one way or another. Maybe its a very strong kit but no one has used it long enough to wield it to its potential.
Last edited by terrahero; 2012-04-09 at 02:16 PM.
Maybe that's supposed to be the beauty of the bomb kit, strategic and proactive placement lol Maybe I'm just giving them too much credit
One question you have to ask is whether the people using the bomb kit in videos had actually spent points in the lines which would help increase the damage or whether they'd just switched their utility skill to bomb kit just to test it out. Many factors involved :P
Also, ANet have said they are now starting to balance skills because they have implemented the trait system. Will be very interesting to see how effective the kit is in the next beta.
Perhaps they should change the bomb kit into just a bomb, a single big ass bomb with a long timer, lets say 15-20 secs and within the countdown you can disarm the bomb just like you would with a downed player.
If the bomb manages to detonate it should be a massive hit something like 90% of a low hp profession.
I think that could lead to some interesting gameplay at capture points/chokepoints/castle sieges.
Maybe the simple solution is that you're allowed manually detonate bombs. If that's too powerful, put a 5 second timer on them to be armed for detonation.
Well one of the problems with the current kit is that it resembles both the mine kit and the grenade kit.
If they where to allow the bombs to be tossed/placed at a distance it would be like the grenade kit.
If they where to allow the bombs to be remote detonated it would resemble the feature on the mine kit.
Not really. The skills do different things.
For the ranger, are the Shortbow and the Longbow ridiculously close to being the same thing? Or do they have different abilities with some different effects?
In the case of grenades vs bombs, at the very least the animations involved will be different since... well one is a grenade, while the other is a bomb that the engineer manually lights (and is much more crude).
In the case of bombs vs mines, the only thing the mine kit does is damage. In five different locations that can be detonated at any time.
I hope you haven't forgotten my role in this little story. I'm the leading man. You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies.
If you give in to your impulses in this world, the price is that it changes your personality in the real world. The player and character are one and the same.
To emphasize my point, look: http://www.gw2tools.com/skills#e;aaa...aaa;Zaaa;bThaa
Grenade:
1 - ranged auto attack
2 - short CD bleed
3 - short CD blind
4 - short CD chill
5 - short CD poison
Bomb:
1 - "melee" range auto attack
2 - short CD burning (puts down a fire field too)
3 - medium CD daze
4 - medium CD blind (puts down a smoke field too)
5 - medium CD immobilize
In addition, you can trait bombs to heal allies. Grenades, however, can be traited to sometimes throw an extra grenade.
All "explosion" traits effect both.
I hope you haven't forgotten my role in this little story. I'm the leading man. You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies.
If you give in to your impulses in this world, the price is that it changes your personality in the real world. The player and character are one and the same.