Guild Wars 2

I originally wanted to make this topic as a poll titled: Do you actually like agony.

But then, I expect a sea of ’No’s and decided that wouldn’t be very productive at all. So here it is, some feedback, some suggestions on how Agony could be a fun and challenging combat mechanic.

Cons first:
Agony acts as nothing more than a gear check at the moment. Gear check IMO is never particularly fun in a dungeon; you feel cheated because once inflicted with agony there’s little you can do; only several classes have class specific solutions for surviving. The good thing is that most agony attacks can be dodged, so I’ll talk about this later.

Pros:
% damage is a nice addition to the game mechanics in a way that it elevates the importance of several stats: toughness and to an extent healing power. Many players will soon note that vitality isn’t a good stat to have; agony hurts you more. Toughness ends up being the better defensive stat. Healing Power becomes a little more important because you want your heals to bring you over the certain death hp threshold of agony.

Suggestion:
So here’s the thing, the devs have cited before that they want different classes to deal with different situations, in different ways. The problem with agony at the moment is, there really is only one to deal with it; heal, (necromancers get deathshroud, yes I know). Agony should act more like an effect which contributes to your demise, rather than an effect that kills you. Agony resistance can still work to reduce the duration of these effects.

So what kind of effects? These can be very simple, and still challenge the player, e.g. (these are just ideas)
Agony of constriction: you move at 10% of your normal rate.
Agony of necrosis: you cannot heal or be healed.
Agony of amnesia: disables a skill on your skillbar for 1 minute.
Agony of sight: enemy AoE rings are disabled.
Agony of the traitor: conditions you inflict become boons on the enemy.
etc etc etc

Now I realize that some of these agonies have more of an effect on the gameplay than others, so the thing is, maybe some of these agonies can be dealt by regular enemies, instead of the ‘big attack’ from bosses. Small enemies like the ascalon squire can inflict agony of sight, maybe the small jellyfish in the underwater fractals can do things like agony of necrosis.

In closing, I think agony should be an attack that alters how we deal with a situation rather than how we gear.

I really like the idea of making different types of Agonies. They are easy to damage and limited to bosses, but having regular mobs apply less deadly but still hindering agony would make fights at levels 20+ much more skill based instead of a straight gear check.

Gear checks aren’t a fun way to progress, but player skill and strategy are always much more fun. It should be possible to progress very high in fractals with very little agony resistance if a group is properly prepared and communicating with each other.

If the Jade maw, instead of doing straight damage, applied a permanent Agony of Vulnerability to players, it would force kiting and proper dodging against tentacles and colossus. Give the colossus proper choreographed attacks, and that fight could turn into a pretty fun pull/kite/kill fight without the required gear check at the door.

Hey, I think you just helped me improve my suggestion (and I whole heartedly agree with you!)

What if agony was a suped up version of the conditions we have now. You cannot remove it but your agony resistance will reduce the duration. Its kinda like what those karka hatchlings do; I think agony would be a fun mechanic with a simple change.

Derk.3189:

Hey, I think you just helped me improve my suggestion (and I whole heartedly agree with you!)

What if agony was a suped up version of the conditions we have now. You cannot remove it but your agony resistance will reduce the duration. Its kinda like what those karka hatchlings do; I think agony would be a fun mechanic with a simple change.

Those Karka debuffs were so confusing at first, but when I realized rolling got rid of them, that felt good.

It feels a little light and uncreative, but having agony as super-conditions actually seem quite fun. Current agony acts more like a super-poison, reducing heal effectiveness and doing damage over time. I wouldn’t mind seeing different version being applied by different bosses to make each fight more unique and interesting.

It would give a good foundation of skills for other tough enemies to use in the future too, besides one generic agony attack.

I’m too tired now to think of how to distribute it, but it definitely sounds good in typing.