[Eng/Magus] Sticky Bombs / Seed of Chaos

[Karast]

This is a proposed change to the Engineer and Magus abilities Sticky bombs / Seed of chaos.

For those who do not know these abilities well, they are both 6 point abilities in the AoE trees. They are a 15 second ST dot, that explodes at the end of its duration for a 20ft low damage aoe on a 10s CD.

Both the dot, and the aoe component of these abilities are extremely low damage, and on both Engineer and Magus they are wide considered utterly useless, if not the most useless ability on both careers.

My proposal is to rework the abilities into something slightly different. Here are the central points:

- remove the dot portion, and reduce the duration of the ability to 7s.

- increase the cool down from 10s to 20-30s.

- increase the damage on the AoE explosion to around 400-500 base damage full spec. With gear a tooltip of ~650ish.

- change the ability to proc the AoE explosion on damage. Allowing a proc rate of 1 explosion per second for the duration.

This will change the ability from a weak dot to a limited AoE ability, that works well on tightly grouped enemies. It also adds a little bit more direct damage, and spike potential to the grenade and changing trees which are crippled by low damage aoe dots.

It is balanced by the short radius of the AoE, the long cooldown, the fact that it is cleanse-able, and the fact that engi / magus do not have many reliable instants to proc it, unless if they are within 40ft. With 1s casts it would be difficult to get more than 3 if not 4 procs, which helps to balance the ability, and increase its usefulness with morales like focused mind.

From a side spec perspective without a lot of points in the tree the damage from the ability would be limited, but it would mesh well with both ST, and Pull specs.

Thanks for having a look!

Sincerely,

Karast

[Penril]

Moving to discussions.

[megadeath]

It's good as it is. All magus/engi dots do poor damage, but it adds up.
With those changes multiple engineers will just oneshot warbands.

[porkstar]

Spoiler:

Removing the DoT portion would effectively alienate it from the "Grenadier" theme which is turret stacks decrease DoT duration thereby increasing tick dmg. I use this as a grenadier but I agree that its not extremely useful except when I have a ton of time to load DoTs. I would leave the ability as is except that add a chance per tick to "jump" to other targets based on proximity and apply a new dot thence a new explosion.

RESCINDED

[Osred]

It's good as it is. All magus/engi dots do poor damage, but it adds up.
With those changes multiple engineers will just oneshot warbands.

Unlikely, but just incase perhaps increase the explosion damage on the target its casted on yet keep damage the same on the AoE? Because currently its not worth the spec point at all right now.

[Glorian]

Atm it is not worth a mastery point, it is also not worth a place in the Grenadier rotation.

As Karast says: It is utterly useless at the moment.

[megadeath]

it is also not worth a place in the Grenadier rotation.

Please elaborate. Seed of chaos fits magus rotation pretty well.

[Tankbeardz]

Atm it is not worth a mastery point, it is also not worth a place in the Grenadier rotation.

As Karast says: It is utterly useless at the moment.

I use it as a cleanse buffer and insta-cast dot on both classes. It is one of those meh skills for sure. What about changing the explosion to a 25% AOE incoming heal debuff?

[wargrimnir]

- change the ability to proc the AoE explosion on damage. Allowing a proc rate of 1 explosion per second for the duration.

I like the change, but having a sticky bomb explode more than once doesn't seem reasonable. Focused Fire would make that downright silly.

Perhaps getting the explosion to proc would do more damage ST (enabling the burst part), and not being able to proc would mean a lesser amount of aoe damage goes off instead.

[Glorian]

it is also not worth a place in the Grenadier rotation.

Please elaborate. Seed of chaos fits magus rotation pretty well.

It has a max damage of 423 (from warbuilder) made in 15secs.
Apart from T1 where is the last place a dot runs for its full time it will never run for its full time. For Grenadier it is a reality that your dots will run for 5secs at most. Mostly even less with double Dok around.

So I rather take a firebomb which can be used to spike. It deals 265 damage but for Sure and can't be cleansed.

Killing someone who has it, or if it runs for its full course happens almost never. Even when, 20feet are a joke in Range. 20feet is, if two blackorcs are standing next to each other shoulder to shoulder next to the target. So the extra effect might hit someone at a Keep defense or a funnel.
As well as the 100ish damage that extra does which is not exactly an A-Bomb.

These are the reasons I think it is hardly worth a global cooldown.