Guild Wars 2

Killing a bunker like a d/d ele is really simple, try to keep weakness, chill and dont be scared to use the already in-game boon removing utilities.

Weakness = Endurance regeneration decreased by 50%; 50% of Non Critical hits are glancing blows (50% damage) (so 25% less damage on non-crit)
Chill = Movement speed decreased by 66%; skill cooldown increased by 66%

Those 2 conditions might be the 2 main counters to bunker/boon builds as they nerf their damage to the complete ground making them running meatshields.

Condition cleansing is not really a problem as most of them only clear one condition and the classes that do apply a lot of weakness (thief and necro comes to mind) apply it so fast and so often that cleasing it wont even matter.

Necro is probably the best class to counter bunkers, you should try it out if those boon stacking builds really annoy you. (Corrupt boon, Well of corruption, spinal shiver x2, perm weakness, a lot of chill, chill on blind, fast application of multiple conditions, etc)

Sokar Rostau.7316:

I note that a lot of people supportive of this possible change play Thieves and/or Warriors.

As a Guardian, if I use a Mace, Greatsword or Hammer, my auto-attack will essentially give you Regen, Might or Protection, or give you a damage boost. A lot of my other attacks, and most of my utilities, will do the same, some more than others. Essentially all of my buffs, which are the centrepiece of the Class, will be giving me a debuff and/or giving you a buff. And you wonder why Guardians are concerned?

Nah, I think you guys are just viewing the change out of perspective.

Consider a Thief. They can do more damage to a target from behind. Since people have a behind, that isn’t a debuff, that’s just a momentary opportunity to attack. You can still dodge or position yourself so not to be hit from behind.

Someone that gains an opportunity to attack a target with many boons, you still have all the advantages of all those boons and you can simply dodge/block a boon-hate attack as well.

Basically, stacking a line of boons and not preparing to block/dodge a boon-hater is like watching a thief stealth and standing still.

Blaeys.3102:

I think people are overreacting.

A few points -

1. According to the reports, it will be a new trait type, meaning not everyone will have it. You will have make a conscious decision to be a “boon buster.”

2. By selecting a trait that does this, you will, most likely, have to compromise some other aspect of your build – i.e. make a choice to be stronger in one aspect while weakening yourself in another.

3. The “improved damage per boon” is just one example. Another trait could just as easily be “gain 1 second of aegis for every boon on the enemy you hit” or “summon a jagged horror for every unique boon on your target.”

4. We haven’t even seen how this is going to be implemented yet. There is a lot they could do with this – and it will probably mean more choices for character builds, which is good thing. The reality is, we dont know.

As people might be overreacting the fact remains that they mentioned adding this design to both thief and warrior, who so far have received the better for most changes that have effected them so it will be more likely these trait will be built into as extra to traits rather than added choices.

Why can’t they do something more meaningful like create more/better team mechanics… instead of just upping the damage against people running boons… how about introducing utilities that put down a combo field that can be finished by teammates to strip boons or something along those lines.

Stop adding damage… burst in this game is already ridiculous. Start adding and USING the mechanics we already have.

Pizz.3698:

Condition cleansing is not really a problem as most of them only clear one condition and the classes that do apply a lot of weakness (thief and necro comes to mind) apply it so fast and so often that cleasing it wont even matter.

Actually i think a elixir gun engineer may apply weakness faster than a necromancer as it is part of the guns #1 attack.

digiowl.9620:

Pizz.3698:

Condition cleansing is not really a problem as most of them only clear one condition and the classes that do apply a lot of weakness (thief and necro comes to mind) apply it so fast and so often that cleasing it wont even matter.

Actually i think a elixir gun engineer may apply weakness faster than a necromancer as it is part of the guns #1 attack.

Yeah but a necro with enough precision can apply poison weakness chill at once and fast. but yeah, most classes have anti-bunker set-ups.

bluewanders.5297:

Why can’t they do something more meaningful like create more/better team mechanics… instead of just upping the damage against people running boons… how about introducing utilities that put down a combo field that can be finished by teammates to strip boons or something along those lines.

Stop adding damage… burst in this game is already ridiculous. Start adding and USING the mechanics we already have.

You do understand that they said the Thief burst is so high as to give them a tiny chance to burst down a bunker quickly. It’s the ultra resilience of bunkers that causes burst to be so high in this game in an attempt to counter them.

Has the potential to be extremely OP against classes taht are supposed to be “booned up” to be effective. Plus what the hell is with Anet? Why are Thiefs getting more work again?

Keep in mind that they’re nerfing Thief stealth in WvW, which is perfectly fair, but will probably leave them less powerful than people are used to, so a balancing buff to even them out may not be out of line. It’s hard to judge from the outside until we get a good idea of the total changes they are working with.

Hopefully not, because that would be a horribly crappy trait. The most you can do with this trait is 8% extra damage since there are only 8 types of boons (technically 9 but Aegis will simply nullify the attack). 8% extra damage to a target running every boon is so pitiful you might as well not bother.

There are lamer traits already, but ok, fine, 2% per buff, 3%, whatever the hardcore players might consider worth running. Either way, the point is that there shouldn’t be that sort of trait, it should be more active and direct.

Leo G.4501:

Sokar Rostau.7316:

I note that a lot of people supportive of this possible change play Thieves and/or Warriors.

As a Guardian, if I use a Mace, Greatsword or Hammer, my auto-attack will essentially give you Regen, Might or Protection, or give you a damage boost. A lot of my other attacks, and most of my utilities, will do the same, some more than others. Essentially all of my buffs, which are the centrepiece of the Class, will be giving me a debuff and/or giving you a buff. And you wonder why Guardians are concerned?

Nah, I think you guys are just viewing the change out of perspective.

Consider a Thief. They can do more damage to a target from behind. Since people have a behind, that isn’t a debuff, that’s just a momentary opportunity to attack. You can still dodge or position yourself so not to be hit from behind.

Someone that gains an opportunity to attack a target with many boons, you still have all the advantages of all those boons and you can simply dodge/block a boon-hate attack as well.

Basically, stacking a line of boons and not preparing to block/dodge a boon-hater is like watching a thief stealth and standing still.

People can just turn around so they’re not hit from behind, and they’ll be just as strong. A boon character can’t just rip off his boons and be just as good. And when that boon is from an the auto attacks, or on a majority of the skills, then they don’t have much of a choice, the enemy is just buffed against them.

Of course, if anti boon skills are slightly weaker than normal skills and increase intensity with the number of boons on an enemy, then its not too much of a problem for classes that usually have boons. That way they’re only really dangerous if a person stacks a large amount, which is what bothers people, so it will help lower boon bunkers without hurting others too badly… well except maybe eles, even glass and other non boon eles get 2 or so boons just from swapping attunements…

Sokar Rostau.7316:

I note that a lot of people supportive of this possible change play Thieves and/or Warriors.

As a Guardian, if I use a Mace, Greatsword or Hammer, my auto-attack will essentially give you Regen, Might or Protection, or give you a damage boost. A lot of my other attacks, and most of my utilities, will do the same, some more than others. Essentially all of my buffs, which are the centrepiece of the Class, will be giving me a debuff and/or giving you a buff. And you wonder why Guardians are concerned?

What will be the point of some of those Boons anyway? Using Regen or Protection would be counter-productive.

As already stated, there are ways to remove/steal buffs already in game. If you want to steal Boons, then play a Class/build and/or use a weapon that allows you to do it. If it’s not your preferred Class/build/weapon then tough luck. No Class/build should ever go without some form of counter and bunkers already have a counter in their lower damage output and the ability of other, specific, builds to remove their Boons. When Thieves or Warriors have trouble with bunker builds it is called balance. What I am seeing here is players saying “I can annihilate every build for every class except for a handful of builds that stack Boons… I want to be able to destroy every build with impunity.” That is the epitome of bad game design.

With that said, if any Class should be a candidate for something like this it shoud be Ranger or Engi, not Thief or Warrior.

That’s not how it worked in gw1. Assuming they take from their predecessor, not at all.
Some skills had additional effects if a person was under a boon, the boon really wasn’t a debuff. Assuming sanity, if warriors got this it would be on there weapon skills or physical utility skills. In exchange for using 1 skill you’d get X effect if they were under a boon. In other words the skill scales better than other skills in the presence of a boon, a boon doesn’t become a debuff at all.

In the case of thieves which come from the sin.
Sins didn’t get additional effects against enchantments.
They straight out removed them.

These skills did not make the monk useless. Which is the predecessor of the Guardian.

Navzar.2938:

People can just turn around so they’re not hit from behind, and they’ll be just as strong. A boon character can’t just rip off his boons and be just as good. And when that boon is from an the auto attacks, or on a majority of the skills, then they don’t have much of a choice, the enemy is just buffed against them.

It’s all relative to the situation and weighed accordingly. Yeah you can turn around to not be hit from behind, but your behind always exists and is an opportunity to take advantage of. The amount of danger you’re in vs a boon hater is proportional to how long you sit under the influence of a row of boons and how big that row is.

And who said the boon-hate would be on auto attacks or even the majority of skills? There could be many variables like a chance on a critical strike, or on specific utilities or on profession mechanics.

I still say it’s not debuffing yourself to boon haters (you still have the boon’s effects!), it’s just giving an opportunity to boon haters to score more damage just like a backstab thief, and having a behind to backstab isn’t a debuff.

And still still, I don’t really care for the concept of boon hate as described in the video. Seem like a boring afterthought mechanic that doesn’t really add more strategy to the game. I doubt people are going to go out of their way to go hunt people with lots of boons on…said characters will continue to regenerate health, take less damage, dodge all over the place and run around the map at a swift clip. Do people go out of their way to bust characters like this? Doing extra damage to such characters won’t negate any of the above.

TwoBit.5903:

Boon stripping and corruption are fine as they are, in my opinion. The problem is that bunker professions can stack a variety of low cooldown boons in quick succession. The sheer variety and low cooldown to boon-granting abilities trivializes removal attempts. This is what the developers need to look at.

The addition of a mechanic through traits will only serve to further pigeonhole builds. When you have as much freedom over trait paths and utilities as players do in GW2, players will tends towards the traits that are useful most of the time rather than use builds that are truly specialized. As widespread as boons are, those with boon hate available will always pick it because it would offer the highest consistent dps boost.

Edit: Grammar. Hard to type while eating.

I don’t necessarily see how it will pigeonhole builds if the implementation is correct. Building your character for “boon hate” will probably entail investing heavily into trees and traits that define that role. To me, the majority of the time simply stacking straight damage modifiers against all opponents will be more consistently useful. It will probably be better in team play situations where someone can build themselves around countering specific opponents but still be strong in most situations(see bunker buster necros).

Its the best solution, because most other solutions have too many unintended side effects. Burst builds, the supposed natural counter to boon builds, really aren’t all that efficient at taking them down in team situations and are actually more effective at countering other burst builds. This is why we see “apex predator” burst builds with the theif and mesmer, as their available options and efficiency keep all other glass builds in check. Buffing something like vulnerability would also be adversely punishing to squishier builds with the chance of creating an opening for tankier builds.

“Boon hate” creates a natural counter to the boon factory builds without being too harsh to everything else which makes it the best solution. These will NOT make boon reliant characters useless. They will remain powerful long after this implementation except they’ll have to be more careful about their application, positioning relative to enemies and builds. Which is good for more balanced play.

condiments.8043:

TwoBit.5903:

Boon stripping and corruption are fine as they are, in my opinion. The problem is that bunker professions can stack a variety of low cooldown boons in quick succession. The sheer variety and low cooldown to boon-granting abilities trivializes removal attempts. This is what the developers need to look at.

The addition of a mechanic through traits will only serve to further pigeonhole builds. When you have as much freedom over trait paths and utilities as players do in GW2, players will tends towards the traits that are useful most of the time rather than use builds that are truly specialized. As widespread as boons are, those with boon hate available will always pick it because it would offer the highest consistent dps boost.

Edit: Grammar. Hard to type while eating.

I don’t necessarily see how it will pigeonhole builds if the implementation is correct. Building your character for “boon hate” will probably entail investing heavily into trees and traits that define that role. To me, the majority of the time simply stacking straight damage modifiers against all opponents will be more consistently useful. It will probably be better in team play situations where someone can build themselves around countering specific opponents but still be strong in most situations(see bunker buster necros).

Its the best solution, because most other solutions have too many unintended side effects. Burst builds, the supposed natural counter to boon builds, really aren’t all that efficient at taking them down in team situations and are actually more effective at countering other burst builds. This is why we see “apex predator” burst builds with the theif and mesmer, as their available options and efficiency keep all other glass builds in check. Buffing something like vulnerability would also be adversely punishing to squishier builds with the chance of creating an opening for tankier builds.

“Boon hate” creates a natural counter to the boon factory builds without being too harsh to everything else which makes it the best solution. These will NOT make boon reliant characters useless. They will remain powerful long after this implementation except they’ll have to be more careful about their application, positioning relative to enemies and builds. Which is good for more balanced play.

With warriors and thieves as dps oriented as they are, players of those professions will naturally follow what gives their class more dps. Boon hate and whatever else gives them the most dps will be a natural choice for them, and with trait lines taking only less than half of the available trait points they’ll surely have enough points to choose boon hate and optimize their general dps.

I’m not so optimistic about the mechanic being properly implemented. Right off the bat, all indications point to it being gimmicky band-aid mechanic. Instead rebalancing the boon granting/stripping dynamic and making it something deeper, it aims to solve the problem by simply scaling up damage. The last thing this game needs is for damage to be more relevant than skillful, strategic play.

TwoBit.5903:

With warriors and thieves as dps oriented as they are, players of those professions will naturally follow what gives their class more dps. Boon hate and whatever else gives them the most dps will be a natural choice for them, and with trait lines taking only less than half of the available trait points they’ll surely have enough points to choose boon hate and optimize their general dps.

I’m not so optimistic about the mechanic being properly implemented. Right off the bat, all indications point to it being gimmicky band-aid mechanic. Instead rebalancing the boon granting/stripping dynamic and making it something deeper, it aims to solve the problem by simply scaling up damage. The last thing this game needs is for damage to be more relevant than skillful, strategic play.

I’d to see more boon stripping too, but you have to look at how it applies overall. Stripping by itself as a method to counter boon reliant characters would be strong as it would severely inhibit those who apply it less infrequently. A warriors who blows his clutch stability with balanced stance to mitigate an oncoming CC train to save his life will have it whisked away in an instant under the pressure of any boon stripper meant to break bunkers. It’d be another case of hurting more options to deal with dominant one.

Obviously since this is all hypothetical, if the implementation forces players making the builds to choose between going between being more efficient boon killers or straight damage it will be a good change. Depending how much you stack against boons, your damage will fluctuate depending on the opponent you face, say your standard 0/10/0/30/30 boon bunker cantrip D/D ele versus S/D 0/20/0/20/30 vital striking arcane utility dps. One is far less reliant on consistent boons for its play than the other resulting in less efficiency on the basis of how you fight. 3k less on a crit could easily be the difference between a win and a lose. Boon hate builds if anything will have to be selective of their targets.

Current utility implementations of thief and warriors aren’t that imaginative either, and focus almost entirely on stacking damage modifiers for maximum damage potential rather than focused role potential. I’m sure hybrid builds will exist, but that is three options ‘Straight dps, hybrid dps, boon hate’ that weren’t there before.

Leo G.4501:

Navzar.2938:

People can just turn around so they’re not hit from behind, and they’ll be just as strong. A boon character can’t just rip off his boons and be just as good. And when that boon is from an the auto attacks, or on a majority of the skills, then they don’t have much of a choice, the enemy is just buffed against them.

It’s all relative to the situation and weighed accordingly. Yeah you can turn around to not be hit from behind, but your behind always exists and is an opportunity to take advantage of. The amount of danger you’re in vs a boon hater is proportional to how long you sit under the influence of a row of boons and how big that row is.

And who said the boon-hate would be on auto attacks or even the majority of skills? There could be many variables like a chance on a critical strike, or on specific utilities or on profession mechanics.

I still say it’s not debuffing yourself to boon haters (you still have the boon’s effects!), it’s just giving an opportunity to boon haters to score more damage just like a backstab thief, and having a behind to backstab isn’t a debuff.

And still still, I don’t really care for the concept of boon hate as described in the video. Seem like a boring afterthought mechanic that doesn’t really add more strategy to the game. I doubt people are going to go out of their way to go hunt people with lots of boons on…said characters will continue to regenerate health, take less damage, dodge all over the place and run around the map at a swift clip. Do people go out of their way to bust characters like this? Doing extra damage to such characters won’t negate any of the above.

I didn’t say when the boon hate is on auto attack; I said when the boon is on auto attack. As in, most of my skills and auto attacking gives me boons, so now that boon hater will always have his advantage on me. Some classes don’t really have the option of playing well without boons, so unless it’s done carefully, it could practically end up being a nerf against those classes.

That’s why I’d prefer things more along the lines of boon stealing or normal removal. That way the class isn’t being punished for having a boon on him or spreading to his allies. There will still be a window of vulnerability, but it won’t completely screw over boon rich classes.
And taking more damage unarguably falls under a debuff category. That’s exactly what vulnerability or frenzy(effect) is, but at different levels. Having buffs doesn’t negate the debuffs. It just means the skill is giving both buffs and debuffs.

condiments.8043:

TwoBit.5903:

With warriors and thieves as dps oriented as they are, players of those professions will naturally follow what gives their class more dps. Boon hate and whatever else gives them the most dps will be a natural choice for them, and with trait lines taking only less than half of the available trait points they’ll surely have enough points to choose boon hate and optimize their general dps.

I’m not so optimistic about the mechanic being properly implemented. Right off the bat, all indications point to it being gimmicky band-aid mechanic. Instead rebalancing the boon granting/stripping dynamic and making it something deeper, it aims to solve the problem by simply scaling up damage. The last thing this game needs is for damage to be more relevant than skillful, strategic play.

I’d to see more boon stripping too, but you have to look at how it applies overall. Stripping by itself as a method to counter boon reliant characters would be strong as it would severely inhibit those who apply it less infrequently. A warriors who blows his clutch stability with balanced stance to mitigate an oncoming CC train to save his life will have it whisked away in an instant under the pressure of any boon stripper meant to break bunkers. It’d be another case of hurting more options to deal with dominant one.

Obviously since this is all hypothetical, if the implementation forces players making the builds to choose between going between being more efficient boon killers or straight damage it will be a good change. Depending how much you stack against boons, your damage will fluctuate depending on the opponent you face, say your standard 0/10/0/30/30 boon bunker cantrip D/D ele versus S/D 0/20/0/20/30 vital striking arcane utility dps. One is far less reliant on consistent boons for its play than the other resulting in less efficiency on the basis of how you fight. 3k less on a crit could easily be the difference between a win and a lose. Boon hate builds if anything will have to be selective of their targets.

Current utility implementations of thief and warriors aren’t that imaginative either, and focus almost entirely on stacking damage modifiers for maximum damage potential rather than focused role potential. I’m sure hybrid builds will exist, but that is three options ‘Straight dps, hybrid dps, boon hate’ that weren’t there before.

One of the core problem with boons is that that they’re all generic. They are treated the same with regards to stripping, and the answer to almost every boon is stripping. For stripping to work, re-balance shouldn’t be limited to tweaking numbers, but also their mechanics.

One possible fix, and I’m not sure why they haven’t done this already, would be to make stripping less random. Another would be to make certain boons dispel under certain conditions. For instance, regeneration could dispels after the user takes too many hits. Might dispels after hitting the enemy several times. These are just examples, but assuming they were implemented, the boon stripper would have to strategically use his stripping abilities based on the opponent’s behavior. In the case of your warrior, the attacker would have to specifically remove the defensive stability boon before stunning him. There could even be a some bluffing, which would make fights more interesting.

The idea opening up more specializations paths is all good, but honestly I think a passive effect like boon hate would have the game breaching the build wars mentality, especially if it’s for the generally faceroll DPS professions like warriors and thieves. The only difference between their paths is how the chosen traits dictate the speed of their dps.

Thedenofsin.7340:

Tell necros that vigor doesn’t matter.

I’m still not sold on ‘boon hate’. What I do know is that too many professions have access to cheap condition removal, and some professions have cheap access to boon production. This makes conditions somewhat weak, and boons extremely strong.

I like the idea of ‘boon hate’ only if its implemented in a fashion similar to the Necromancer focus 5 ability, where the base damage is low, but increases sharply based upon the number of boons.

I agree with this premiss entirely.

Boons are a gift for classes most of the time the player does not even have to key them to create such a powerful mechanic, yet getting a condition involves timing, keying, and luck to be truly useful unless your zerg is bigger.

I play several different classes including Necro, Thief, Warrior, Guardian, and Ele. When you play them you certainly see that boons are gifted while conditions are hard earned in pvp at least.

Just as a quick thought; what if these boon hate traits only affected specific skills? Namely, with Thieves and Warriors, their 3-slot and F1 skills respectively; 5%/boon, max 15%, +passes through protection? Might be a bit too specific to be worth a trait, but I think it’s worth being a bit tentative as to what we think they are, exactly.

If they implement this,they will kill
all support builds.They will also kill
every other build, of classes that use
boons as core mechanics,like the
Guardian.
It is at least ironic,that players that
play the most favoured,and least skill
demanding class,the thief,are complaining
about bunker builds, and accuse other
players that play such classes, of being
mindless button mashers.
Giving boons to allies,and being hard to
kill is what I’m supposed to do as a Guardian.
And I doubt that a player with a Thief,ever
put in even 50% of the effort I put in as a
Guardian, in order to survive their mindless
dps and stealth mashing.
As for those that say that the game is not
support oriented,I advise them to check
the description Anet gives for the Guardian.
It is “an exelent support fighter” and “uses
shouts to buff allies”.
Punishing a boon class for doing what it
is designed to do,would be the equivalent
of having the Thief loose health everytime
it stealths,or have the Messmer take more
damage for every clone it has active,or get
players to take damage for every condition
they apply.
Now that would be interesting.
Boon counter mechanisms and builds
are already in the game,and the last thing
this game needs,is a simplistic and general
debuff to the one build that gives,high burst
and utility builds,like theThieves,a run for
their money.

so far all the updates have bashed player’s skills, so it wouldn’t surprise me if it happens again and again

Like I wrote in the other thread!

Give us Condition-Love then!
25 stacks of bleeding + 25 stacks of vulnerability give me +250 Healing Power, Vitality and Toughness…^_^

Yeah it makes no sense as I am bleeding to death, but makes as much sense as "What???? He has a boon! Make him hurt more!

Yeah, I take more damage raising my shields than not raising them at all….Great Job!

Yes, that’s obviously how it works, when you get protection “-33% damage received” (so weak, this boon needs a buff obviously), the “boon haters” will automatically start doing twice as much damage to you. In fact that’s what ANet will make : for each boon on you, you take twice as much damage from boon haters …

I’m very much against the “boon hate” idea. Not all classes can generate boons. The classes that do generate boons do so for a reason, to make up for their lack of dps or health or low toughness in most cases. The game already has classes that can ruin your day if you have a lot of boons. Necros, for example can corrupt boons which can kill you very quickly. Mesmers can do nearly the same with arcane thievery. I believe that it has been mentioned that warriors will be the prime candidate for the boon hate attribute. They already do plenty of damage and elementalists, who rely on their boons for survival would only face more adversity.

Some classes can not help but receive boons as they are in the minor trait line, like a mesmer receiving vigor, regeneration, or protection if they spec 20 into the chaos line. This means that many mesmers will no longer use the staff as it will be seen as a detriment.

There is no class that can easily kill anything, and there shouldn’t be. I feel that the “boon hate” mechanic is a terrible idea and would only make warriors even more powerful and lessen the usefulness of boons, no matter what the damage increase might be.

This will just limit our builds, greatly. Why do it? Who complains about Boons?

One thing strikes me in the discussion, yes, it’s kind of silly to cause more damage to people using defensive buffs like Protection or Regeneration, but what about mechanisms designed to punish offense?

Why if there were a trait or ability that caused you to have +20% crit chance against enemies with Fury? Or what if a trait or ability gave you increased damage equivalent to the number of Might stacks a target had? Basically an “anything you can do, I can do to you” sort of bonus. I don’t know what combination of these effects would be necessary to make it worth slotting, or how much would be too much, but it might be an interesting idea.

The thing that worries me that while this will effectively counter D/D eles, it will also severely hurt staff elementalist. The d/d’s can handle it, but the staff builds would be crushed utterly.

How about less popular weapon sets get boon-striping abilities? Do this across classes.

That makes weaker builds more viable, and it’s a logical counter to boons. Don’t want an enemy to be buffed? Then strip their buff!

Don’t add another complicated, gimmicky mechanic to the game. Lots of players are still working on figuring out combos (as shown by the angst over the Daily Combo achievement) and other depth aspects to combat. By making different weapon sets more attractive, we can have more varied PvP without having to re-tweak all the classes to be able to function without boons (if they don’t tweak ele and guardian to work without boons, they basically destroy ele builds and at least severely hurt a lot of guardian builds).

Honestly, if ANet didn’t want some classes to be relying on boons, they shouldn’t have made the classes rely on boons. It’s not like this is out of ANet’s control.

So boon factory builds will be killed by boon-hate builds, but still be OP against everyone else?

If D/D Ele is OP, tweak how many boons can be stacked how quickly.

This is funny because a vast majority of people still don’t even care about conditions. Doesn’t matter if its a buff or debuff. By habit and the fact that it’s a pro thing to do. I protect people and boon without being asked. But the idea of a game is to simply have counters to everything. If something is OP it usually gets the nerf bat in the backside.

People are overreacting here.

Is condition useless because condition-hate exists? Is burst useless because anti-burst exists? Is movement control useless because stun breakers and teleports exist?

No, no and no.

Likewise, giving to every class and their mothers boon stripping would make boons completely pointless, because everyone and their mothers would be able to strip them. Besides, boon stripping is only good against builds that use few boons. It’s rather weak against builds that can re-apply boons every few seconds. Besides, if every profession could counter boons the exact same way, it would be pretty boring design.

I think devs are going into the right direction with “more damage per boon” traits. Because it won’t make a worthwhile difference against most builds who use a single or two boons every once in a while, as the damage increase won’t be much, but will work great against boon-heavy builds, which currently lack a worthwhile counter (and like I’ve said, stripping is not strong enough, unless stripping skills had extremely low cooldowns… which would make them overpowered).

Once this change comes in, most people won’t probably even notice it.

Guardians will never use ‘save yourself’ again. Lol…sorry, couldn’t resist

Boon hate…it is interesting and really without seeing it in action any praise/condemnation will be issued purely through a biased lens of your preferred class. The obvious concern is it’ll just wreck boon-centered professions/set ups, however, assuming it is a grandmaster trait, it will make any boon-hate set up predictable…so there is that to consider. It could be that the damage or new play style around boon hate is just so powerful that it end up being too effective. As someone mentioned, a mesmer can keep vigor and regen up very easily-neither provide direct damage reduction, so thinking in a straightforward manner, having x2 w/e damage bonus against boons in that case is…well…not really ideal and the mesmer has no counter-play during the match. Or what if you have might+swiftness+retaliation+stability while fighting a boon hater…well…if retaliation did damage based on the attacker’s damage it would be interesting.

But you see my point-pointless, ungrounded speculation (although a bit fun to do). So let’s be cautious, by all means….but let’s not say we hate a mechanic that is still in the works and have no worthwhile information about.

(Side note: It would be a funny match though: ‘player A gets boons: oh crap I have boons; I’m vulnerable! Best to kite that boonless boon-hater guy until my boons run out and I’m defensless-I mean not vulnerable-I mean…wait what?)

The value of boon hate is all going to come down to how it’s implemented. If it’s implemented as the video implied, as some kind of passive damage increase for a class based off the number of boons that class has, it’s going to be an awful mechanic and one that is clearly there as nothing more than a bandaid to terrible class design. What happens when Class A doesn’t do well against Class B? Well we’ll give it boon hate. What happens when Class A still can’t beat Class B? Well we’ll increase the boon hate % until the class can beat it. That’s asanine.

Instead, the way this mechanic should work is that various moves are given to the classes and these moves deal damage, dispel all boons from the target, and do a slight damage increase per boon destroyed. This is far more valuable because now the class can actually deal the damage it’s intended to deal, the bunker builds will have to retreat to refresh their boons, and it benefits your group adding another element to group play.

For example… Arcing Slice does everything it does now, but also removes all boons from your target and deals an extra 1/2/3% damage per boon removed. We’ve just given the Warrior a reason to use this skill, it’s balanced because it’s on a long cooldown, and even comes with a penalty because the Warrior’s heal will be for less unless he regains his 3 bars.

The effectiveness of this new mechanic will all hinge on how it’s implemented. It will either be kitten attempt at class balance, or it could be a striking addition to group play.

I agree that more skills could have effects like “for each boon the enemy has, it deals +X damage”. However, I’m completely against the idea of giving every single class boon removal. It adds more diversity to the combat when there are many diferent ways to counter the same problem. Necros and Mesmers specialize at stripping boons. Let’s have other professions offer different anti-boon options. The good thing about a “more damage per boon” mechanic, is that boons will still have their efect (players will still be able to dodge more often with vigor, block an attack with aegis, etc). If every class could strip boons, it would take away from the diversity of combat.

Also, having to invest on traits for"boon-hate" means that builds will have to take away something else for it. This means that only specialized anti-bunker builds will take those traits, as they’ll be pointless otherwise.

I think boon hate is a bad idea because it introduces the following two scenarios to the game:

• My ally places 1+ boons on me. I’m mad at my ally because he/she is now causing me to take more damage from my foe(s).
• My ally removes 1+ boons from my foe(s). I’m mad at my ally because he/she is now causing me to do less damage to my foe(s).

You applying boons to allies and removing boons from foes should not be negatives for you and/or your allies.

How ridiculous would it be to be in World vs World, Structured PvP, or even PvE and people are yelling at their allies to stop applying/removing boons because it’s hurting them?

“Mesmers and Necros, stop removing enemy boons!”
“Warriors & Guardians, don’t use your shouts!”
“Elementalists! Don’t take Elemental Attunement or stop swapping attunements!”

It’s silly.

Furthermore, boon hate is allowing people to do nothing but “make a build” to counter other people who “make a build” but also “use 1+ skill(s)” to gain their boons. I think providing more access to active ways of performing boon removal would be a much better solution.

Currently, the only classes with reliable boon removal are Sword Thieves, Mesmers, and Necromancers. Guardian can trait to remove 1 every 20 seconds (don’t know why that cooldown is so long) when they inflict burning.

That’s only 4 classes and really the Guardian doesn’t truly count and for Thief they are forced to take a particular weapon (main-hand sword).

Necromancer and Mesmer are the reliable ones since they have both utilities as well as weapon skills for boon removal/conversion/theft.

I don’t think it would hurt to give each other class access to at least 1 anti-boon utility.

If we start to have people need to take a particular trait in their build to counter another build we’re going to take steps towards “build wars” as GW1 became. I would prefer we avoided that and aimed more towards “skill wars”.

Scenarios like those can already happen in the current game. If a Necromancer wants to strip the foe’s boons to deal more damage, but his Mesmer ally strips the boons the moment before, the Necro will waste their skill. But that’s not a fault with the game. It’s a fault with team building and team coordination, which were lacking.

I doubt a boon hating mechanic would be so strong, that it would make boons useless. That would be overpowered. Regeneration, vigor and the like will probably be far more worth their positive effects, than a 3% damage boost to a single build from a single foe. and let’s not even talk about Protection: 33% damage reduction.

Stop nerfing my kitten ele!!!

TexZero.7910:

its almost like people ignore the fact that sigils exist.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Sigil_of_Nullification

A chance to remove 1 boon on crit every ten seconds is not so useful.

Not only should you spec for crit/precision, the fact that you get a boost of removing 1 boon every crit with a 10 second CD on a bunker guardian/ele who produce a crapload of boons without even thinking about it is very very..

And this is coming from a crit/condi based glamour/boon removing mesmur who uses the sigil. It helps, but not so much. You’re better off using the bleed on crit sigil.

Gibson.4036:

If D/D Ele is OP, tweak how many boons can be stacked how quickly.

nope, cause Ele’s boons stacking directly depends on how well the player knows his class and is able to perform quickly the combos required to get those results.
Give to all other classes similar COMPLEX mechanics to counter it, and I am all up for it.

Grevender.9235:

Gibson.4036:

If D/D Ele is OP, tweak how many boons can be stacked how quickly.

nope, cause Ele’s boons stacking directly depends on how well the player knows his class and is able to perform quickly the combos required to get those results.
Give to all other classes similar COMPLEX mechanics to counter it, and I am all up for it.

How is granting boon everytime you switch attunement or activate an aura complex? That’s no different from pressing Heartseeker and auto-closegap on the target dealing damage. It’s not complex.

Red Falcon.8257:

It’s an exploitable decision.

The boons that matter in pvp are only 3: protection, stability, retailation.
People will simply run with just those and don’t stack the others.
Eles will not use the vigor/regen trait, Guards will not use SY.

Basically nothing really changes, unless the damage increase vs boons is at least 5% per boon.

I disagree with your post.

Fury, Vigor etc, they all matter and have huge impact.

I’d be very curious to hear something from Anet before the change goes in.
Why instead of giving boons to everyone equally do we need boon lovers and boon haters?
In the end the reason Eles are OP is their boon stacking, though they need those boons in PvE.
Why not simply nerf those skills in sPvP? Like you nerfed Save Yourselves for Guardians.

bluewanders.5297:

Why can’t they do something more meaningful like create more/better team mechanics… instead of just upping the damage against people running boons… how about introducing utilities that put down a combo field that can be finished by teammates to strip boons or something along those lines.

Stop adding damage… burst in this game is already ridiculous. Start adding and USING the mechanics we already have.

Adding another dedicated build concept is adding a team mechanic.

Adding depth isn’t going to make the game worse.

People claiming they would ever be angry about getting boons put on them are being naive. Even from the limited information given during the video, we know that boon hate is going to be something rare and not handed out to everyone. They specifically mentioned the Warrior too, which would imply it’s more of a melee benefit.

What are you going to do against the other 7 classes? Take full damage from them in the off chance you’ll take 5% more from a Warrior? A class most people already walk all over?

Again, it’s all going to come down to how many people have access to these things and how it’s implemented. A passive increase based off the number of boons the enemy has is a stupid mechanic and I hope they aren’t foolish enough to do this. Instead, they’ll hopefully make it so certain classes can remove boons with a melee attack on a cooldown so they can’t spam it.

Now given most boons are able to be put right back on, and that every class (Except the Ranger, unless you consider their regen a boon?) has multiple boons and only 2 classes right now really remove them, it’s clear this game could use a couple more ways to nullify them.

Most games have more ways to remove buffs than they have ways to put them on. I see nothing wrong with it.

There’s just too many skills giving too many boons.

Increase power of boons, have skills reward no more than 2 different boons. Stuff like Guardian shouts, engineer elixir B, Mesmer signet and the like are just bad skills.
A single boon has to mean something, make you significantly stronger.

Gallrvaghn.4921:

Grevender.9235:

Gibson.4036:

If D/D Ele is OP, tweak how many boons can be stacked how quickly.

nope, cause Ele’s boons stacking directly depends on how well the player knows his class and is able to perform quickly the combos required to get those results.
Give to all other classes similar COMPLEX mechanics to counter it, and I am all up for it.

How is granting boon everytime you switch attunement or activate an aura complex? That’s no different from pressing Heartseeker and auto-closegap on the target dealing damage. It’s not complex.

Sir, either you didn’t read my post or attempting to troll? either way that’s a failure, ‘cause I clearly stated “stacking”, not mere “gaining”: switching attunement it’s not much complex (although many many players still stick with just one), but constantly switching in the most efficient order and triggering all combo fields to stack boons, well that requires skills on player side.

Aza.2105:

Fletch.3572:

It doesn’t make sense in my simple little brain. Don’t these classes with all these boons need them to make up for disparities elsewhere? Turning buffs into debuffs on yourself I just cannot fathom.

Balance these boons you are finding too powerful is what my split pea sized brain is telling me.

Well the main problem seems to be with d/d elementalist. As described ele is suppose to be the jack of all trades class. Yet they perform better than classes designed to do one function. They have more mobility than a thief and can keep boons up better than a guardian, all while maintaining mobility, versatility, moderate damage and means to escape at will.

If they implement boon hate then it will definitely hurt guardian since they are suppose to be boon warriors. Such a mechanic would be adverse to their inherent design. So we’ll have a class that has slow mobility, no ways to escape and low hp who now takes extra damage for the amount of boons it has running. When in fact, those weaknesses I listed exist to balance the fact that they are made powerful through boons.

I don’t want to rant but, I think Anet really needs to provide a test server to let the players test the proposed changes before they go live.

This.

If they want to rebalance d/d elementalists, then perhaps they should…. oh my gods, I don’t know, tinker with d/d weapon skills?

As it stands, support builds are getting screwed as hard as Chuck Norris’s roundhouse kick can be simulated by ANet’s servers: “You a staff-using supportive ele? Shout-based Guardian? Whoops, sorry, we can’t let you survive the game. Come on, we want you to play Warrior and Thief here”

I thought they added boons because that’s the way the classes are played? As noted, Guardians basically depend on boons (and their Thu’ums give multiple boons at once, doomed class much?) Engineers have elixirs which inherently give them boons, and their healing skills all give boons, so that’s two slow-moving classes screwed extra hard.

Boon hate = great idea :p

The way people are blowing this out of proportion is insane…

If you think this is going to “KILL” guards and eles, you need to rethink both how you play your toon and how other play against you.

If you think thiefs will now steal all your 10 boons instantly… you have no idea how thiefs work.

People are not screwed. Unless “screwed” means they need to be more aware of their oponents tactics…

I mean, “EVERYONE IS GOING TO KILL US BECAUSE WE HAVE BOONS!”, really everyone is a warrior with 30pts in discipline and no burst mastery now??

Hah, glad I read this thread. I was going to go into WvW and drop tons of boons on everyone thinking I was doing good work.

Teaches me for not keeping up with the latest and greatest PvP news.