I originally posted this question in the “Players Helping Players” forum, but it’s become clear that the players there (while helpful) can only offer their best guess. But when it comes to mechanics like these.. truth is, how they work should be crystal clear.
I don’t think anybody wants to spend trait or slotting choices on a hunch; we like making informed decisions. And since it’s not clear from the text provided within the game, I think it’s ultimately the responsibility of the developer to clear up the confusion when it comes to how certain mechanics are intended to work. Otherwise, how do we know they’re working correctly (or at all)? In this particular case, it’s a question regarding the mechanics of condition removal.
So, let’s say you have three abilities and/or traits equipped which offer the same passive ability: “Cures a condition every ten seconds.” And then you zoned to a new map (thus zoning into a new map with them all “active”).
How exactly does that work? Would you..
A) ..have a condition cured every 3.33 seconds?
B) ..have three condition cures firing off at the same time every 10 seconds?
C) ..have three condition cures firing off at different times, each on its own independent 10 second timer, which is completely based on when you slotted each ability/trait, regardless of zoning to a new map afterwards.
Clearly (in my opinion) “A” is much more useful than “B” (and even “C”), as the latter can more easily allow conditions to land and expire naturally between cleanse points.
It has also been suggested that condition removals are always immediately ready to cleanse a condition as long as they have not done so in the prior 10 seconds. That it isn’t a “pulse” that fires every 10 seconds, but instead a state – either being in a mode where it was recently used (passively) and in the process of recharging over a 10 second period, OR being ready and instantly available, but remaining dormant until a condition presents itself for removal.
That’s a nice thought, but is it accurate? And even if it is, the question of how multiple condition removal skills interact remains. What if you have three such passive skills/traits running? Do they all react, cleanse, and then go on to a 10 second cooldown over the same single condition (which is a big waste of two of them), or is the system more intelligent than that with 2 of the 3 cleaners remaining dormant since only one needs to react to cleanse the problem?
The latter, for example, would allow someone to instantly cleanse the first three stacking application attempts of a bleed as they’re each applied, where as the former would waste three cleanses on the first bleed application (allowing the following two bleed applications to successfully apply).
I (and I believe other players) would really appreciate a definitive “this is how the system works” explanation. I know some developers prefer to leave things a mystery and prefer players figure things out, but how an ability works (particularly traits, which we can only choose so many of) should never be one of those things that players have to guess about.