Guild Wars 2

Disclaimer I am by no means a good Guardian this is just to illustrate how Searing Flames with Defenders Flame trait does against a Strength Rune Elementalist.

Searing Flames – When you apply burning to a foe, remove 1 boon. has a ICD of 10 seconds

@ 2:06 I pop Virtue of Justice which is bad for burning and removal that is why he hit 20 might stacks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTCsj2g9Bbk&feature=youtu.be

Somethings to note: This may need to be tested with other boon removal skills and traits. It seems that might is priority for removal could be a FIFO system but I am not sure.

The Ele peaked at 16 stacks of might but was stripped quickly until I popped VOJ at 2:06 then he jumped to 20 because I popped VOJ. Most of the fight he didn’t get over 12 usually sat around 10 or less.

Normally a Elementalist should sit around 10-12 if he had another rune set on that isn’t uncommon for a D/D ele with battle sigils. With strength 16-22 is usually the norm.

TL:DR The take away should be to put on a sigil of nullification in s/tPvP/WvW and actually test it out if it works, take boon removal traits alter builds. There aren’t many classes that can stack might like a D/D Ele and I just took 2 traits so that I can hit the 10 sec icd as much as possible anyone else should be able to do this with just a Sigil of Nullification. Might looks to be the priority for removal.

I main Elementalist but I just hate the fingers pointing at Strength Runes to be nerfed because they are good and people seem to not be testing anything. I tested this a while ago but didn’t record it and have brought up Sigil of Nullification before. The counters to might stacking are in the game and a Guardian isn’t even known for it’s boon removal.

1. He wasn’t stacking Might optimally throughout that duel.

2. That’s all well and good in a 1v1 scenario, but this game’s balanced around team fights. If the trait and the sigil have a global, not per-target CD, what happens when a Necro drops a blocked mark on you from off the point while you have Aegis up, you use up your Searing Flames on him, then what do you do about that Hammer Warrior on point with you for the next 10 seconds?

3. Nullification is not suitable for everyone, depending on your attack speed, and base critical chance, you could be looking at dropping a boon every 10 seconds, or every 20 or more. Yes, Nullification is good against Might stackers, if it suits you. It makes it so that battle sigil can only give a maximum of 3 stacks, low CD blast finishers can’t be stacked multiple times and only give 3 stacks each too. And bursts of Might from abilities like Signet of Rage are made largely useless.

Ray.3780:

1. He wasn’t stacking Might optimally throughout that duel.

2. That’s all well and good in a 1v1 scenario, but this game’s balanced around team fights. If the trait and the sigil have a global, not per-target CD, what happens when a Necro drops a blocked mark on you from off the point while you have Aegis up, you use up your Searing Flames on him, then what do you do about that Hammer Warrior on point with you for the next 10 seconds?

3. Nullification is not suitable for everyone, depending on your attack speed, and base critical chance, you could be looking at dropping a boon every 10 seconds, or every 20 or more. Yes, Nullification is good against Might stackers, if it suits you. It makes it so that battle sigil can only give a maximum of 3 stacks, low CD blast finishers can’t be stacked multiple times and only give 3 stacks each too. And bursts of Might from abilities like Signet of Rage are made largely useless.

1) Of course it wouldn’t have mattered though because the trait seems to prioritize might. There is a point early in the fight where fury is the boon farthest to the right then might, then another boon I think regen. The trait still strips the might leaving everything else there.

2) Hypothetical what-if I don’t know why don’t you run it in s/tPvP and see if it works. I just wanted to show a scenario with boon stripping and what it does. I haven’t tested nullification and every boon stripping trait in the entire game. The language is pretty clear on the sigil and trait it would be 1 foe. If it was more then 1 we wouldn’t have this conversation because people would say it’s so good. If a entire team is running boon stripping setups vs another team that isn’t but running strength it could be interesting. Obviously the trait and the sigil don’t have anything to do with each others ICD but I don’t think you are implying that.

3) I picked a gs guardian w/ sword I have 46% chance to crit in that video and get fury from pack runes occasionally. Your bringing up attack speed when a Guardian’s main weakness is getting kited it probably would be better on another class if your testing nullification.

The whole point is might stacking is not a problem and there are counters to boon stackers in the game.

Everytime he had 2-4 boons up besides Might, and Might was always the one to get cleaned up.

Do all boon stripping skills prioritize Might?

Because thats a big deal, running a boonstripping skill that will always take off Might first could make it look like its easy to counter. But if other boonstripping skills (which are sparce to begin with) dont then we wouldve seen those stacks go a lot higher for a lot longer.

This part I am unsure of, there really isn’t much on the wiki as to what is priority or not. I know for example bountiful theft for thief with sleight of hand will always take stability as a priority.

Specific skill I think might have to be looked at. It could prioritize what has the longest duration also need to take a better look at stripping traits/skills.

Some skills prioritize different boons, and some are total random. Thats atleast what a google search has yielded for me.

Searing Flames may be a good counter to Might stacking, but with each boon-stripping ability seemingly working differently, this doesnt proof that Might is easy to strip in general, just that its easy to strip for a Guardian with Searing Flames.

As an ele main: We stack lots of might indeed. I would assume that every time you gain any boon, or a stack for a boon you already have, that boon is moved to the top of the list, as that would be a logical way of coding. “Removing a boon” is most likely coded to remove the top boon, which, in case of a mightstacker, will pretty much always be might. (This is also where the idea of cover boons/conditions comes from)

Edit: You could test this by applying boons in random orders, than having one removed and looking at which one was removed; should be the one that was placed on you last.

It really depends on the boon-stripping ability, people have done tests.

For example, the Thief trait that lets them Steal 2 boons will always put Stability at the top. If the target has Stability, no matter if it was the first boon to be applied or the last, it will always take that first.
And it has a clear list of priorities it goes down, i dont remember the exact order, but f.e. it will take Protection over Might. So no matter what order, or magnitude, if the target has Stability, Protection and Might this trait will always take Stability and Protection.

Similarly, something like Well of Corruption for Necro has Stability as the lowest priority. If any other boon is present on the target, regardless of magnitude or order at which it was applied, it will always get corrupted before Stability.

And some are more random. And perhaps some do work with a First-in-first-out system, and some might be First-in-last-out. We simply dont know for sure, and this information isnt reflected in the tooltips of these traits and abilities.
And it can vary greatly on a skill per skill basis, there is no unified way that boon-stripping abilities work.

So a test as done by ozii is usefull, but all it proves is that Guardians with Searing Flame make for a good counter to Might-stacking, nothing more. And this is unsettling to me because Guardians are already extremely popular and represented in sPvP.
They dont need to be the counter-meta profession to already get picked pretty much always.

Terrahero.9358:

It really depends on the boon-stripping ability, people have done tests.

For example, the Thief trait that lets them Steal 2 boons will always put Stability at the top. If the target has Stability, no matter if it was the first boon to be applied or the last, it will always take that first.
And it has a clear list of priorities it goes down, i dont remember the exact order, but f.e. it will take Protection over Might. So no matter what order, or magnitude, if the target has Stability, Protection and Might this trait will always take Stability and Protection.

Similarly, something like Well of Corruption for Necro has Stability as the lowest priority. If any other boon is present on the target, regardless of magnitude or order at which it was applied, it will always get corrupted before Stability.

And some are more random. And perhaps some do work with a First-in-first-out system, and some might be First-in-last-out. We simply dont know for sure, and this information isnt reflected in the tooltips of these traits and abilities.
And it can vary greatly on a skill per skill basis, there is no unified way that boon-stripping abilities work.

So a test as done by ozii is usefull, but all it proves is that Guardians with Searing Flame make for a good counter to Might-stacking, nothing more. And this is unsettling to me because Guardians are already extremely popular and represented in sPvP.
They dont need to be the counter-meta profession to already get picked pretty much always.

Yea after some test with sigil of nullification it seems to either be random or take what boon has the longest duration still not sure. Will have to test a bit more.

I agree with oZii, the antipathy towards Strength runes is a bit knee-jerk to me. They seem to be getting carried in with a lot of other new things people dislike.

Strength as the premier damage rune makes a lot more sense than Ogre ever did. Ogre has a rather powerful summon and if it’s to be a set piece the rune ought to be centered around that and not the flat damage bonus. You would think people would be happier that Strength surpassed Ogre, since there are tons of counters to boon-stacking but none against the Ogre bonus. The duration bonuses too can be seen as a risk, because instead of a flat crit damage increase or some other basic effect, you’re gambling on something that can be stripped off.

I should point out that I seldom use the rune and have no real personal bias one way or the other. But I do think that while the sigil updates may be a whole other issue, the options for runes feel much more varied and open after the patch.

@shimmerless Yea if you look up any dps chart on reddit or just google the PvE builds post patch strength is not that far ahead of ogre and eagle runes.

It is simple understanding of the way damage works in GW2 ferocity was nerfed so ogre was nerfed I don’t know why this is a surprise but you summon a dog. People could be asking for a buff to the dog or something instead of a nerf to strength so ogre or other runes can compete. I think people have always just been focused on Ogres modifier.

Lets see:

Rune of the Ogre

• The summoned Rock Dog has approximately 7300 health points.
• It attacks using a single hit skill for 1000-1150 damage, and a double hit skill for about 500 damage per strike. These attacks are delivered every 2-3 seconds.
• It will attempt to flee upon reaching low health levels.

So lets say we have an attack that hits for 2000 damage to add 1000-1150 to that hit we need +50% damage. If the Rock Dogs AI sucks then that’s what needs to be fixed but the damage it puts out is significant and far greater then what your getting from Rune of Strength.

Boon stripping prioritization seems to vary per effect.

For example, Slight of Hand always prioritizes stability if it’s there. However, I’ve seen others say that Sigils don’t do this, and the Mesmer Shatter boon strip doesn’t prioritize stability either.

Personally I think boon stripping and condi cleansing are both underdeveloped areas within the game, but I feel that way because the actual behaviors in various situations aren’t well understood.