Guild Wars 2

You have to admit that this aspect of this game is a little bogus. This thread’s suggestion is in the interest of shifting the time-frame during which burst combat operates and giving players an answer to what are effectively unfair mechanics without entirely negating those mechanics or the damage that they represent.

THE PROBLEM WITH INSTANT-ACTIVATION, PASSIVE TRIGGERS (IPTs)
One of the things that GW2 developers said regarding the feel for the game’s combat was on how it was supposed to hinge on players reading other players’ skill animations (cues) and counter-playing accordingly. Not only are there only a few unique cues per race (most are often visually unimpressive—especially spell-caster cues—and cloaked in layers of impressive visual effects leftover from a typical engagement), but there also exist passive triggers and skills with no activation time or cue. Given the nature of such skills and triggers, the meta-game has naturally gravitated toward piling on as many of these effects (often randomly since most passive triggers are RNG-based) onto a burst rotation as possible without compromising a build’s focus (indeed, most passive triggers often complement and enhance a build’s focus). This speeds up combat tremendously and often results in victories derived from pressing the most buttons the fastest in hopes of setting off your passive triggers because a player can’t really counter-play against something that activates instantly and as part of another action.

Another point that I’d like to make is how despite the wide variety of target-seeking, long-range skills in this game, there really aren’t too many skills that possess a 1-second or longer cast-time. Guild Wars 1 was a very decision-oriented game in which play hinged on interrupting or playing around another player’s skills. This worked because players could see what their opponents were doing in real time and could quickly determine whether or not they could take that damage/effect, whether they should skirt out of the way, whether they should break off an attack or whether to interrupt it if they had the ability to do so. One of the ways that we see this more balanced aspect of GW1 is in how almost EVERY SINGLE regular-range spell in that game has a cast-time of 1 second or longer. The only spells that ever really come down below that cast-time threshold are spells that have PBAoE effects, supportive/healing spells such as Monk spells, spells that are specifically designed to be interruption skills or the occasional Elite Skill. This was a system that worked because even if you couldn’t stop an enemy player’s action (and even if that action happened very quickly), you could still rapidly come to terms with what was happening to you and/or your teammates. In GW2, it’s much more difficult to do this due to the issues I discussed in the first paragraph, thus rendering a once successful system quite broken.

Now would be the time for someone to cite how GW2 is an “action-oriented game” with “dynamic combat” that would be restrained by such things as a 1-second cast-time threshold for most long-range, projectile-less skills. Honestly, that might end up being the case. Given the movement capabilities granted to most professions that specialize in melee-range combat, forcing all spell-casters to have long, cringing cast-times for everything would probably end up being really bad for the health of class balance. However, there is a solution.

SOLVING THE IPT PROBLEM WITHOUT RUINING SPELLS
Engineer bombs. This is the model for how IPTs could contribute fairly to combat without being nerfed into the ground classic ANet style. Engineer bombs, instead of simply blowing up once the cast-time is complete, have a lag time between their appearance on the battlefield and when they actually have an effect. However, the Engineer does not have to hold down a channel button for 2 seconds just so a single bomb can explode. To this effect, the Engineer can chain bomb attacks with clever placement, movement or by just spamming them (mostly in PvE) while not being horrifically overpowered because of the detonation lag time that keeps Bomb Kit DPS in check and also provides an enemy some time to dodge or reposition in case he/she doesn’t want to take the impact.

Why isn’t this how IPTs work?

Let’s take Incendiary Powder or Dhuumfire for example. These are traits that grant a player an RNG chance to inflict heavy burning damage on a single opponent. There is no warning (not even the person using these traits will truly know when it will trigger) since these traits trigger in conjunction with a skill impacting another player; therefore, there is literally no counter-play available when fighting against these abilities. If you’re fighting a player with these traits. You are going to get burned as part of it. No one can truly avoid this.

However, instead, let’s imagine that if a player using one of these traits suddenly triggered one at random, a flagrant cue animation independent from that player would reel up for a brief moment before then finally inflicting the desired, traited effect. In this case, we are now not only giving the player’s target some counter-play room, but we aren’t necessarily disturbing the flow of the attacking player’s burst rotation. Since IPT traits and sigils that behave similarly to Incendiary Powder or Dhuumfire slip so seamlessly into a burst rotation, it wouldn’t necessarily hurt those rotations to delay them (as are Engineer bombs to a certain degree), by giving them their own animation cues independent, but still attached to the player that triggered them. The effects would still trigger as part of a burst-rotation, they would just trigger independent of direct skill effects.

In the case of Dhuumfire, a Necromancer could trigger the trait, but instead of immediately lighting an opponent on fire, some sort of ridiculous, edgy, reaper-esque animation could reel up behind the player and perform its own animation to tell the opponent that “Hey, I’m going to light you on fire now!” The opponent on the receiving end could then decide, “Well, should I dodge now or should I save my dodge for later because Dhuumfire triggered pretty early on in that guy’s rotation?” Suddenly, there’s a little more thinking going on.

This sort of solution could apply to all sorts of other skills and passive triggers as well: Static Discharge bolts, Elementalist scepter 2-3 skills when attuned to Lightning, Fire and Air sigils, and the list could go on.

SPELLS WITHOUT PROJECTILES, WITHOUT RED CIRCLES, BUT THAT STILL DIRECTLY TARGET ENEMY PLAYERS
Alright, this is pretty nonsense too. Once more, this issue comes out of how most spell-casting animations are horribly bland, shared across multiple spells and difficult to discern in the first place. Again, I turn to the Engineer [Bomb Kit] for a solution. The cast-times aren’t really the issue with these sorts of skills, it’s the fact that their effects are tied directly to the end of their cast-times. [Dragon’s Tooth] is a fine example of what could be a good model for skills like the ones described in the above heading. The flaw of [Dragon’s Tooth] is that it is ground-targeted. However, if it followed a player, it would be very strong.

There are quite a few single-target, long-range, projectile-less skills without red circles in this game that could benefit from adopting a [Dragon’s Tooth] style skill completion paradigm. For instance, we have the Necromancer skill [Spinal Shivers]. It has a long cast-time, but even that can get lost in combat. Instead, what if the cast-time was lowered drastically, but instead of having a direct effect once the cast-time was completed, a blue mist would hover above the target before crashing down maybe 3/4 of a second later, thus applying the skill’s effects. This is the sort of paradigm that I think would really transform GW2 combat into a multi-layered, reaction-driven and thoroughly engaging experience. There are loads of skills that would be candidates for changes like these. And the best part is how—if done properly—such changes wouldn’t really affect the way burst rotations work now. Honestly, if there were multiple stacks of your attacks floating and ready to strike a targeted opponent, that opens your door to a myriad of other options by which you could amplify those attacks or steer yourself in the combat to come.

A lot of this visually stimulating cacophony is in the wrong place. This isn’t an enormous problem in PvE because most PvE enemies attack slowly, are large and often have obvious animations, but the picture below really does speak volumes about how messy a fight can look with people just auto-attacking or going through a lazy rotation. However, in PvP situations, this sort of stuff really muddles one’s ability to tell what is happening.

This is what I’m talking about when I say that a powerful skill can have short cast-times with rather mute animation cues so long as there is some sort of delayed effect cued by some sort of impressive visual effect near the person using that skill. As it stands, having skills activated immediately after cast-time completion just isn’t really good enough given the fast or instant-activation speed of many “good” skills combined with their lack of obvious cues. Cues shouldn’t be limited to just “Hoho, I’m waving my arm,” because that’s the cue for every spell. There’s no real way to differentiate among several spells that use the same, very plain animation.

Cues for powerful abilities should be “Hoho, I’m waving my arm, but there’s also this crazy symbol that appears near my body followed by a spell that shoots out toward your location or activates directly on top of you.” This sort of design allows not only for immediate counter-play (blocks, dodging, etc.) but also post-action counter-play (“OK, I know that opponent hit me with [skill], so that means it’s on cool-down. Now what should I do/what will my opponent do next?”).

Signets are a good example of ideal skills in GW2. Signets effectively broadcast a signet-users’s actions even before a signet-user can affect a signet’s active ability. A player uses a signet; an opponent sees that signet broadcasted above that player’s head; that opponent can make a counterplay if he/she reacts well and/or quickly enough. Moreover, most signets don’t have projectiles or red-circles attached to their active effects. Yet, as I’ve said before, that sort of issue is downplayed by the fact that all activated signet abilities with offensive effects are broadcasted by the giant signet image appearing above a player’s head when in use. In this manner, even if a signet is instant-activation, an opponent still knows what exactly just happened instead of being left in the dark about why he/she is suddenly blind or covered in conditions. This also goes for suddenly seeing an enemy gain several boons or heal.

What all this means is that Signets are perhaps the best examples for ideal offensive skills in this game thus far given that their effects are broadcasted over top of the player that uses them, and they have a simple, clean visual impact on an enemy.

A lot of skills could benefit from this sort of paradigm. Broadcasting is the first step to redeeming the unfair nature of instant-cast offensive abilities with long range and no projectiles or red-circles as well as cast-time oriented spells of the same nature that use visually unimpressive casting animations and instantly impact a target without a projectile upon cast completion.

This next section is about repairing skills that are visually unimpressive or skills that provide no real counter-play outside of fluke dodges or blocks.

NEW SKILL FUNCTIONALITY: Delay

• Delay represents how long a skill takes affect after the initial cast-time is completed. Several skills already have delay periods. Adding such a tool-tip to those skills would make it clearer how they work. Adding delays and visual cues to instant-activation skills as well as ranged skill that don’t use projectiles would make them more fair in terms of game-play by providing more counter-playability to opponents and making pvp less of a face-roll across the keyboard. Furthermore, validating a delay mechanic with a formal tool-tip could set it in stone as not just a real mechanic, but also a mechanic that may be used again in the future for new skills or functional changes of old skills.

NECROMANCER
Dhuumfire (Spite – XI)

• Now when this skill activates, it summons an invulnerable reaper minion from the ground that casts an orange-tinted [Life Blast] projectile at the Necromancer’s target upon which this trait procced. The [Life Blast] projectile deals no damage, but inflicts the burning described in the trait.

Rending Claws

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: ½ second
• Cast out a whirling blade that inflicts vulnerability and returns to you.
• Damage: 229
• Vulnerability (1): 7 seconds
• Range: 900
  • Bright green-tinted [Vapor Blade] animation.

Blood Curse

• Now uses a projectile: red-tinted [Orb of Wrath].

Rending Curse

• Now uses a projectile: red-tinted [Orb of Wrath].

Grasping Dead

• Cast-time reduced from ¾ to ½ second.
• Added delay (1 second)
• Now produces a red circle with skeletal hands dotting the ground after the cast. After one second, the animated arms that perform the grabbing animation trigger, signaling the damage and condition effects.
• PvP now inflicts the same amount of bleed stacks as the PvE version.

Feast of Corruption

• Foes targeted by [Feast of Corruption] are surrounded by a bright green ring during the cast-time period. The ring bursts upon cast-animation completion.

Spinal Shivers

• Foes targeted by [Spinal Shivers] are surrounded by a bright blue ring during the cast-time period. The ring bursts upon cast-animation completion.

ELEMENTALIST
Lightning Strike – named changed to Lightning Bolt (to diminish combat log confusion)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 6 seconds
• Strike foes at the target location with a lightning bolt.
• Damage: 403
• Delay: 1 second
• Radius: 120
• Range: 900

Arcane Blast

• Build up an orb arcane energy above you before sending it at your foe. It blasts your target for critical damage.
• Delay: 1 second
  • The delay represents how long the orb remains above the player before flying toward the target.
  • Projectile color adjusted to look more true pink.

Arcane Wave

• Build up a ring of arcane energy around you before detonating it, blasting foes in the area for critical damage.
• Delay: 1 second
  • The ring follows you around instead of simply having a delayed effect at the location at which you first activate this skill. Therefore, [Arcane Wave] will still have an effect directly atop the Elementalist.
  • Delay ring would be a true pink color.

Dragon’s Tooth

• Now uses ground-targeting.
• Added tool-tip: Delay: 2 seconds

Phoenix

• Cast-time increased from ¼ to ½ second.
• This skill’s audio cue now plays when the player first begins casting it.
• Now creates a red circle on the ground where the Phoenix projectile is targeted to explode and turn around back towards the caster.

ELEMENTALIST CONT.
Shatterstone

• Cast-time reduced from 1 to ½ second.
• Damage increased from 252 to 302.
• Added tool-tip: Delay: 2 seconds
• Now counts as an Ice Field (Duration: 2 seconds).

Ice Spike

• Added tool-tip: Delay: 2 seconds

Eruption

• Added tool-tip: Delay: 3 seconds

THIEF
Infiltrator’s Strike

• Post-shadow step sword strike cast-time increased to ¾ second.

Shadow Shot

• Post-shadow step dagger strike cast-time increased to ¾ second.

GUARDIAN
Flashing Blade

• Post-teleport sword strike cast-time increased to ¾ second.

ENGINEER
Incendiary Powder (Explosives – VII)

• Now when this trait activates, it summons an invulnerable [Flame Turret] down beside the Engineer using a smaller [Supply Crate] animation. This [Flame Turret] fires a [Rocket] (old [Rocket] projectile used as the [Rocket Turret] tool-belt skill) at the Engineer’s target upon which this trait procced. The [Rocket] projectile deals no damage, but inflicts the burning described in the trait.

Shrapnel Grenade

• Added delay (1 second).
• The grenade projectiles now land on the ground and rest for 1 second surrounded by red circles before detonating.

Freeze Grenade

• Added delay (1 second).
• The grenade projectiles now land on the ground and rest for 1 second surrounded by red circles before detonating.

Poison Grenade

• Radius increased from 150 to 180.
• Added delay (1 second).
• The grenade projectiles now land on the ground and rest for 1 second surrounded by red circles before detonating.

Bomb

• Added tool-tip: Delay: 1 second

Fire Bomb

• Added tool-tip: Delay: 1 second

Concussion Bomb

• Added tool-tip: Delay: 1 second

Smoke Bomb

• Added tool-tip: Delay: 1 second

Glue Bomb

• Added tool-tip: Delay: 1 second

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