Guild Wars 2

Just spit balling ideas here.

Conditions are kinda boring right now, while they play a large role in the game they don’t have the kind of impact i’d personally like.. so here is my idea to spice them up a bit.

Change the effects of conditions based on the type of armour they are applied onto.. for example:

• Bleed – Decrease the damage done to heavy armour (hard to bleed a guy/gal in a plate suit)

• Burning – Increase the damage done to heavy armour (imagine cooking inside plate!)

• Cripple – Reduce the slowing effect on light armour (even when slowed.. people in the lightest gear should move faster)

• Poison – Give heavy armour some resistance to the damage portion of poison (tough to poison those tin cans)

• Confusion – Have confusion linger slightly longer on heavier armour and slightly shorter on lightly armoured targets

• Chilled – Have Chilled linger longer on heavy armour, less so on light

I feel that fear/immobilise/vulnerability/weakness and blind are fairly universal.. if you have any ideas though throw them in the pot.

The thinking behind the above is this: Increase the complexity in combat by having players make gear choices beforehand on how best to protect themselves.. I see medium armour as the happy medium, heavy to decrease the easily stacked bleeds available while suffering from other condi’s more.. and light being able to move more swiftly even when under attack..

Now here is a biggy…

Break up the armour restriction on all professions and allow people to choose how they will suit up themselves, it would open up some more depth in combat and in players gear choices… will you be a lightly armoured guardian? Moving swiftly around the field applying your healing and boons or will you be a heavily armour elementalist wading into the midst of the fight. It would also open up a huge range of cosmetic looks by mixing and matching different armour to balance these effects on conditions.
Here is a mixed gear guardian I whipped up in a few minutes: http://i.imgur.com/jseD6.jpg

Now the counter arguement would probably be the age old “but the class silouettes are important!” I don’t think it is important in guild wars 2, in spvp you can identify any class in moments by what they are doing and the effects of there skills… in world vs world it matters even less, heavy armoured people are still going to be line breakers.. the lighter people are still going to hang back.

Like I said at the top of the post.. just spit balling ideas, didn’t put any real numbers on those changes because it’s not my job to balance things :P I even imagine wearing a full set of either light/med/heavy could provide some over arching bonus if it is needed.. anyways, comments appreciated.. this post is probably a bit long by now :P

Where as I would like to see some extra effects for Bleeding and other conditions (like Vulnerable, Weaken, etc) I don’t think it should be based on armor though, I know mixing armor could be interesting in a aesthetic way, but it would mean making a lot of conditions a little UP (Poison/Bleed not afflicting HA so much) considering some people think Bleed needs a buff or something, (Increased effect of other conditions maybe?).

Yes you said HA take more damage from Burn and Confusion lasts longer, but then Burn which is the strongest DPS going would do much more damage, and by that logic people in Cloth and Leather would also burn more, catching fire etc.

And it seemed (even though you were just spit balling) medium armor got no love there.

If I was going to add things to condition I would make it so it effected everyone the same, just to be fair, Also could you imagine a Staff based support Elementalist with HA (increased Def, Reduction in Poison/Bleed with only Other effects lasting longer or doing a little more damage)

it would be like;

Bleed – Change it to duration like Poison, Slightly buff damage, Other conditions are more effective or last longer I dunno.

Vulnerable – More susceptible to crits or CC?

Weakness – Slower attack speed? maybe?

Cripple – Cause a low amount of damage when player moves (every, 2-4 seconds?)

While keeping their current effects.

Poison already has Heal reduction, Blind is fine, Burning is fine, Immobile is fine, Confusion I think is OK, Fear is fine, Chill is fine.

I’d like to see that.

The ideas up there are just that.. the concept as a whole is what I think would be fun/interesting for players.. the specifics of what each condition does and doesn’t do can be discussed to no end really :P

I dont think that conditions are boring. But I do think that they need a fix.

Right now bleed stacks above 25 are wasted and weaker burn/poisondurations delay stronger ones. In that case a crit warrior with bow delays the heavy burn of a condition elementalist. Its kinda sad.

They need to find a better solution for conditions in general.