Guild Wars 2

Newer player here wondering why Boon Duration is such an opaque stat. From what I’ve seen of what the game used to be, it’s one of the only stats left to hold over percentage-based boosts rather than rating points, and is also the only remaining stat with a very direct name, its alternate name being the more interesting Concentration.

It’s also incredibly hard to get. Some classes boost it naturally; otherwise it’s doubloons (which seem invariably more valuable when used to create Runes and Sigils) or snowflake/watchwork recipes, which are still confusing and limited to me as a new player.

It seems like a compelling stat for my Guardian and Engineer to have during dungeon runs, and I think it would be fun if it were simply renamed Concentration, given a rating equation, and a whole new set of upgrade components, armor prefixes, and crafting recipes were fleshed out for it.

Does this run counter to the game’s design? Would stacking boon duration close to an extra 100% (which is apparently the hard cap) diminish the importance of activated skills which apply the boons? Would it make support classes too powerful? Because from what I’ve seen, hard, straight deeps is the dominant dungeon build strategy for…well, everything. I’d love the option of building in other ways.

Boon Duration actually used to be a dominant stat because it strengthens DPS builds by ensuring that Might and Fury were always available, even solo. However, it got heavily nerfed during the update to runes so it is unlikely that they would give it a more prominent role at this time since it so recently changed.

Furthermore, Condition Duration would need to get the same treatment.