Guild Wars 2

Team buffs, like shouts, are really stupid right now. They can only affect 6 people, including yourself. However, the game bases the remaining 5 people on proximity only. This translates to some really unfortunate situations. If I’m in WvW and running alongside a minion necromancer and shout Retreat!, I could end up hitting all 5 of his minions and completely missing the necromancer!

Buffs need to start prioritizing targets. Here’s my suggestion:

Tier 1: If you are a Ranger, your pet.
Tier 2: Party members
Tier 3: Guild members
Tier 4: Other players
Tier 5: Your own summons
Tier 6: Other players’ summons
Tier 7: Dolyaks
Tier 8: Other NPCs

So that would mean if I want to get swiftness on an escort npc I would basically need to clear everyone else out of the area.

No thanks. Maybe just lower the priority of summons so you don’t hit the necro’s 5 minions.

What type of escort npc are we talking about. Maybe we can throw it in

Any npc that you need to escort for events. I try to keep swiftness on them as much as possible to speed up the event.

okay, but just how often are there swarms of people gathering around the Dolyak in WvW? Not that many. The escort NPCs around the Dolyak will change speed depending on how fast the Dolyak moves. Otherwise they’d never catch up when killing bears and harpies.

Are you only talking about this in wvw? Because that changes my opinion.

then here, lets throw a specialty tier for “hero” npcs like escort mission characters and make it right under party members

I agree with the OP’s problem statement: buffs are getting wasted. I also support the proposed resolution: prioritizing which NPCs are affected. (Must like the [F] action key is prioritized to search before rez and so on.)

I don’t think we need to decide all the details of the order here — I want to make sure ANet understands the concept and implements it in some fashion. (The original order is a good start, along with making room for escort NPC.)