Guild Wars 2

So here is the idea.

Poison right now is a damage over time and a 33% healing debuff.

What if we changed poison instead to its own version of Bleed, allowing for up to 25 stacks, and removed the healing debuff into its own condition, something like “deep wounds.”

What would this accomplish?

Well, it would allow for a few things. One, is provides a way for condition builds who routinely hit the 25 bleed stack cap on bosses a second form of dmg output. This could open up many options for balancing certain specs that need work. Thieves in particular could then take a small hit to their burst dmg from the dreaded 3 hit combo, and be given poison stacks to compensate on the dmg loss, keeping overall dmg the same, while reducing the amount of burst that seems to be the core of many complaints.

(I recommend this as a thief main player myself)

So what do you guys think? Would 2 DoT’s (bleed and poison) that stack to 25 potential stacks be too much? Or do you like the idea and see how it could really help class and spec balance be achieved? (keep in mind poison would then lose the 33% healing debuff and it would then be its own condition)

Well, right now it’s balanced pvp-wise…and quite useless in pve unless the boss/mob heal (almost none…maybe it ll become more useful later on)
Giving it the effect of deep wounds i think it would be a lil too much, removing something like 20% hp from a boss is quite insane here in gw2 to my eyes…
I approve the bleeding mechanic, but it would just become a second bleeding…making bleeding itself useless (since a poison stack remove two times a bleed one), maybe just increasing is dmg would be better (like 2/3 of a burning dot) or give it some other bonus, like the 33% healing and put that it works like anticoagulant and makes bleeding do a little more xD (sin and necros would love that lol)

I don’t really like your idea for a “new” poison, but I agree that the current poison feels like it could be changed.

Poison doesn’t feel like poison. It feels more like Burning that’s specifically for countering heal.

If I had free-reign, I would make Poison stack in duration, but no longer reduce healing and have no flat damage. Instead, it would have 2 new effects.

1) Deals damage equal to a % of the target’s max HP. (like 1~2%)
2) Increase the duration or damage of all other conditions on the target by a flat %.

Basically, it would be re-tooled as a condition-amplifier.
It attacks the target’s internal resistances, making burn, bleed, chill, vuln, weakness, and cripple all more effective.

The %hp-damage is to ensure its own independent usefulness, and to differentiate it from Burning or Bleeding.