Guild Wars 2

I’ll start off by saying that there are a plethora of conditions and boons within Guild Wars 2. Some of these conditions and boons are redundant, or the difference is so minor as to wonder why the additional condition/boon exists.

Below, I have shown what I feel would be the best way to adjust/balance the EXISTING condition and boon system (without creating an all-new one, though I do think that would be the BETTER solution). Currently, conditions serve primarily as another form of damage, and do not directly serve the role of hindering status effects that their name or original intent would imply. The primary goal when using conditions is to stack as much damage-over-time as possible, destroying a target. Below I have tried to consolidate reduntant conditions and boons in order to eliminate excess, while tweaking the functionality of some conditions slightly so as to remove the overhead focus on stacking as many DoTs on a target as possible.

I would highly recommend lowering the “spammability” and excessive “stackiness” of conditions, and while that is a topic related to this one, it is not this topic directly. While I am well aware that other existing systems would have to change somewhat to accommodate these changes, I am not going to delve deeply into what I think should be done (got my own stuff to work on too).

I make these suggestions as a fellow designer and writer. Whether implemented or not, I hope it serves as a source of inspiration and consideration for improving the game:

Damage-Over-Time Conditions (DoTs)

• Burning – deals high damage per second, extremely short duration, spreads effect to foes adjacent to target

• Poison – deals low damage per second, high duration, amount of damage dealt increases each second over the length of its duration, 33% Healing reduction

Punishment Conditions (Triggered Effects)

• Confusion – deals damage when affected target attacks or uses a skill

• Torment – deals damage when affected target moves

Status Effect Conditions

• Chilled – Slows actions, skills, and skill cooldown recovery

• Crippled – Slows movement speed and Endurance regeneration

• Weakness – No longer slows Endurance regeneration

Conditions with No Change Made

• Blind

• Fear

• Immobilize

• Taunt

• Vulnerability

Conditions Removed Entirely

• Bleed – Not interesting or engaging to use, is merely a small DoT. Superceded by Burn and Poison

• Slow – Adjusted and folded into Chill. Currently adds unnecessary redundance with Chill and Cripple

Grand Total Conditions

• 14 Conditions Original Tally
• 2 Conditions Removed
• 7 Conditions Tweaked
• 12 Conditions Final Tally

Boons Reworked/Changed

• Might – increases outgoing damage and adds 1% Critical Chance per stack

• Protection – reduces all incoming damage by 33% (includes Condition damage)

• Regeneration – regains health per second, increases Endurance regeneration by 33%

Boons with No Change Made

• Aegis

• Quickness

• Stability

• Swiftness

Boons Removed Entirely

• Fury – Adjusted and folded into Might, percentage effect divided to incorporate stacking intensity as Might does

• Resistance – Adjusted and folded into Protection

• Retaliation – I highly recommend redoing Retaliation as an inherent feature of specific skills and traits instead of keeping it as a Boon (similar to Alacrity). In addition, whether kept as a Boon or reworked into skills/traits, it should reflect a portion of ALL damage for its duration (Condition damage too, not just direct damage).

• Vigor – Doesn’t need an entirely separate boon to exist. Folded into Regeneration, Endurance regeneration duration reduced to mirror Poison healing reduction duration

Grand Total Boons

• 11 Boons Original Tally
• 4 Boons Stripped
• 3 Boons Tweaked
• 7 Boons Final Tally

I enjoy the condensed, cleaned up conditions and boons. The only thing I take real trouble with is poison increasing in damage the longer it is active; it makes more sense to scale from a number of stacks. Or was your idea to remove condition stacking completely?

You’ve made a lot of suggestions but I don’t understand the impetus behind the suggestions. I really can’t make an analysis of the breadth of your argument with that in mind.

That said, I am not sure if you understand Resistance. You say it’s an adjustment when rolling it into protection in the way you suggest is a massive, fundamental shift in the effect. You realize you’ve completely butchered Warriors with this change, right?

There’s also no analysis made on the basis of boon protection/condition coverage and it doesn’t really make sense without that either. In reality, this changelist is just a gigantic buff to Necromancers because less boons means it takes less time for you to start corrupting Stability.

My tweaked Version:

Damaging Conditions

• Burning – deals high damage per second, extremely short duration, spreads effect to foes adjacent to target
• Poison – deals low damage per second, long duration, reduces Healing Efficiency by 33%

Punishment Conditions

• Cripple – Reduces Movement Speed by 33% and deals Damage over time while moving.
• Confusion – Removes Friendly Fire from AoE and deals Damage when using Skills (AA not included)

Debuff Conditions

• Blindness – Chance to miss targets and Target can’t deal Critical Hits
• Weakness – Attributes get reduced by 10% and Boons last 33% less long

Control Conditions

• Chilled – 50% Attack Speed/Endurance Regen Reduction
• Fear – Forced Movement and slowed Skill Recharges

Removed Conditions

• Bleeding (Total obsolete Condition)
• Immobilization (Total obsolete Condition, therefore exist CC!! Stuns)
• Slow (merged into Chill, Cripple is enough as Movement Speed Reducer)
• Taunt (Fear is enough)
• Vulnerability (halfwise merged into Weakness with a better debuffing effect)
• Torment (merged into Cripple)

14 Conditions reduced down to 8.

Boons

• Might – Increases outgoing Damage and Condition Durations by 1% per Stack
• Protection – Reduces all incoming Damage by 33%, includes Condition Damage
• Regeneration – Regain per Stack per Second 1% of your Max Health and gain more Endurance Regeneration per Stack (1%/Stack)
• Stability – Increases Heal Efficiency by 33%. CC Effects aren’t working on you per Stack
• Fury – Attributes except Power get increased by 10% and other Boons except Fury last 33% longer
• Swiftness – Move 33% faster, Skills Recharge per Stack 1% faster
• Resistance – Incoming Conditions last 50% less long and your Break Bar revovers per Stack 5% faster
• Alacrity – Attack 33% faster, Speeds up the Ticker of your Effects (Your Poison you deal tick not per second, but per 3/4s instead, so your Poisons tick faster under Alacrity, or your Regeneration ticks faster regained Health for you under Alacrity)

Removed Boons

• Vigor – merged into Regeneration
• Retaliation – No place for garbage like that in GW2, if seriously needed, rework it into a Rune Effect/Sigil or Traits for specific Classes.
• Quickness – merged into Alacrity, reworked Alacrity, Chrono has no standalone Boon anymore

Done, 8 Conditions, 8 Boons.

CCs

• Petrification – Immobilizes you, No movement possible, 99% Damage/Critical Reduction from incoming hits, but if you get hit critical = Crushed > Instant Dead
• Stun – Chance for Automatic Activity Interruption, disables Dodges temporarely
• Daze – Break Bar Regen Reduction
• Fatigue – 20% Max Break Bar Reduction (makes it easier to break the Bar, works basically like GW1’s Deep Wound, but not on Health, but the Break Bar of the Player)
• Launch – Move Enemy away from you
• Pull – Move Enemy towards you

Removed CC

• Knockdown (just obsolete)

Orpheal.8263:

My tweaked Version:

Damaging Conditions

• Burning – deals high damage per second, extremely short duration, spreads effect to foes adjacent to target
• Poison – deals low damage per second, long duration, reduces Healing Efficiency by 33%

Punishment Conditions

• Cripple – Reduces Movement Speed by 33% and deals Damage over time while moving.
• Confusion – Removes Friendly Fire from AoE and deals Damage when using Skills (AA not included)

Debuff Conditions

• Blindness – Chance to miss targets and Target can’t deal Critical Hits
• Weakness – Attributes get reduced by 10% and Boons last 33% less long

Control Conditions

• Chilled – 50% Attack Speed/Endurance Regen Reduction
• Fear – Forced Movement and slowed Skill Recharges

Removed Conditions

• Bleeding (Total obsolete Condition)
• Immobilization (Total obsolete Condition, therefore exist CC!! Stuns)
• Slow (merged into Chill, Cripple is enough as Movement Speed Reducer)
• Taunt (Fear is enough)
• Vulnerability (halfwise merged into Weakness with a better debuffing effect)
• Torment (merged into Cripple)

14 Conditions reduced down to 8.

Boons

• Might – Increases outgoing Damage and Condition Durations by 1% per Stack
• Protection – Reduces all incoming Damage by 33%, includes Condition Damage
• Regeneration – Regain per Stack per Second 1% of your Max Health and gain more Endurance Regeneration per Stack (1%/Stack)
• Stability – Increases Heal Efficiency by 33%. CC Effects aren’t working on you per Stack
• Fury – Attributes except Power get increased by 10% and other Boons except Fury last 33% longer
• Swiftness – Move 33% faster, Skills Recharge per Stack 1% faster
• Resistance – Incoming Conditions last 50% less long and your Break Bar revovers per Stack 5% faster
• Alacrity – Attack 33% faster, Speeds up the Ticker of your Effects (Your Poison you deal tick not per second, but per 3/4s instead, so your Poisons tick faster under Alacrity, or your Regeneration ticks faster regained Health for you under Alacrity)

Removed Boons

• Vigor – merged into Regeneration
• Retaliation – No place for garbage like that in GW2, if seriously needed, rework it into a Rune Effect/Sigil or Traits for specific Classes.
• Quickness – merged into Alacrity, reworked Alacrity, Chrono has no standalone Boon anymore

Done, 8 Conditions, 8 Boons.

CCs

• Petrification – Immobilizes you, No movement possible, 99% Damage/Critical Reduction from incoming hits, but if you get hit critical = Crushed > Instant Dead
• Stun – Chance for Automatic Activity Interruption, disables Dodges temporarely
• Daze – Break Bar Regen Reduction
• Fatigue – 20% Max Break Bar Reduction (makes it easier to break the Bar, works basically like GW1’s Deep Wound, but not on Health, but the Break Bar of the Player)
• Launch – Move Enemy away from you
• Pull – Move Enemy towards you

Removed CC

• Knockdown (just obsolete)

I really don’t like Petrification, it’s like getting killed for being unlucky if you’re hit critically. Total immobility is enough. I do like the cripple/torment merge. Question: how does Fatigue affect players?

please dont fold chill and slow. That change will make it literally one of the strongest soft cc in the game. Anet will have to nerf chill access globally.

I don’t get the Bleed hate. It is a pure DoT effect that males sense with cutting/stabbing. Burning and poison don’t cover this type of theme.

Beyond that, I think by doing this reduction, you make the remaining condos and boons even that much more critical, and stripping them even more important. The goal should be different than that.

Ps- if I would remove anything, I think torment should be covers by chill and/or slow. It doesn’t make sense to add a dot effect based on movement when you already have slow, cripple, and chill.

Orpheal.8263:

My tweaked Version:

This is definitely more along the lines of what I’d personally go with if given full reign over the system (sans the Petrify part, due to the frequency of Critical Hits within the game currently…but that is something I would also have done differently as well).

Nice condensing. Can hope that one of these days Anet gets a chance to make their own adjustments to better the health of the game.

Sarrs.4831:

You’ve made a lot of suggestions but I don’t understand the impetus behind the suggestions. I really can’t make an analysis of the breadth of your argument with that in mind.

That said, I am not sure if you understand Resistance. You say it’s an adjustment when rolling it into protection in the way you suggest is a massive, fundamental shift in the effect. You realize you’ve completely butchered Warriors with this change, right?

There’s also no analysis made on the basis of boon protection/condition coverage and it doesn’t really make sense without that either. In reality, this changelist is just a gigantic buff to Necromancers because less boons means it takes less time for you to start corrupting Stability.

The impetus is very simple and stated directly in the OP: this game suffers from Boon/Condition bloat and spam. There are many effects that are either needless, redundant, or could be much better done. Myself and many others have made suggestions as to how the bloat and spam could be trimmed for the health of the game.

I also stated in the OP that there are obviously other adjustments that would also have to made in tandem with trimming the bloat (in reference to your Warrior and Necromancer “reality” statement) and my suggestions. However, I don’t work for Anet, and have my own projects, so I cannot put time into rectifying the entirety of their system (as much as I do like their game and want for it to be the very best it can be), especially when my posting a huge collection on how to “fix” it may not amount to anything in the end.

To answer though, I would say that looking at Boons as “less boons = better corruption for Necros” is entirely the wrong way to go about balancing. I certainly hope that is not the mindset Anet takes in its balance department.

I am also well aware of how Resistance works, how it impacts the game, and what it does and doesn’t do. I never said Warriors should not have an immunity option necessarily. I am simply saying that there are many things which need not be Boons or Conditions and unnecessarily harm the game, to the state in which Condition spam and Effect bloat are where they are now. Thus, the removal of Resistance as Boon, and the addition of Protection covering ALL types of damage.

Opopanax.1803:

I don’t get the Bleed hate. It is a pure DoT effect that males sense with cutting/stabbing. Burning and poison don’t cover this type of theme.

Beyond that, I think by doing this reduction, you make the remaining condos and boons even that much more critical, and stripping them even more important. The goal should be different than that.

Ps- if I would remove anything, I think torment should be covers by chill and/or slow. It doesn’t make sense to add a dot effect based on movement when you already have slow, cripple, and chill.

People find the purpose of it redundant; there’s already 2 damage over time conditions (burn and poison). Thematically yes it does fit and that’s why it’s in the game.

Black Iris Flowers.3418:

Opopanax.1803:

I don’t get the Bleed hate. It is a pure DoT effect that males sense with cutting/stabbing. Burning and poison don’t cover this type of theme.

Beyond that, I think by doing this reduction, you make the remaining condos and boons even that much more critical, and stripping them even more important. The goal should be different than that.

Ps- if I would remove anything, I think torment should be covers by chill and/or slow. It doesn’t make sense to add a dot effect based on movement when you already have slow, cripple, and chill.

People find the purpose of it redundant; there’s already 2 damage over time conditions (burn and poison). Thematically yes it does fit and that’s why it’s in the game.

Well, right now its kind of redundant since its no different from burning. But if burning were to be given a secondary effect, then Bleeding would have a place as the pure DoT condition (or vice versa)

Exemplar.1479:

The impetus is very simple and stated directly in the OP: this game suffers from Boon/Condition bloat and spam. There are many effects that are either needless, redundant, or could be much better done. Myself and many others have made suggestions as to how the bloat and spam could be trimmed for the health of the game.

Yes but how does it suffer. On a play-to-play basis, what precisely about the amount of conditions and boons is making the game difficult, unfun, confusing or unhealthy?

OriOri.8724:

Well, right now its kind of redundant since its no different from burning. But if burning were to be given a secondary effect, then Bleeding would have a place as the pure DoT condition (or vice versa)

Worth noting that while the conditions are on their face very similar, they do have many subtle mechanical interactions that cause them to function differently. Things like specific condition duration, defensive traits like Stop Drop and Roll, offensive traits like Blinding Ashes do give these conditions meaningful distinctions.

Interesting list of changes here @Exemplar, here are my thoughts

Condition Changes

• Keep bleeding as a pure DoT condi, no side effects. It can have medium damage per tick and medium duration. I don’t see a reason to not have it personally

• Not sure how I feel about removing the passive tick damage from confusion and torment. As of right now, I’m not sold on this change

• Chilled is way too strong with this iteration unless the % is severely nerfed. I would say have chill slow down cast times and CDs, but not affect any other actions, and definitely not affect how fast you can move

• I would add Taunt to the removed conditions list. Its too exclusive (only 2 skills can apply taunt, and only 2 traits can apply it, spread between only 3 of the 9 classes), and isn’t unique enough from fear. I just don’t feel that GW2 gains anything by keeping this condition in the game

Overview

• 1 condition change that I want to see nerfed
• Keep bleed, yet remove Taunt, for a grand total of still just 12 conditions

Boon Changes

• Adding the effects of Vigor into Regeneration is a nice change. Unfortunately I think this confuses the effect of Vigor. Vigor was meant to help you out through avoiding damage, whereas Regeneration is meant to help you out by recovering from (or even through in the case of condis) damage. Combining them confuses the purpose of both, so I have to say leave them separate for now

• Change to Might is interesting, and I think it could be good.

• I think Resistance and Protection should remain as separate boons. They are meant to defend against two different types of builds. But I do agree with nerfing Resistance from 100% immunity from condi damage down to about 50% (same for the movement impairing condis, Resistance should ignore 50% of the effects [eg so if you were hit with immobilize and had Resistance, your movement speed would be slowed down by 50% instead of being forced to stand still] ). That still leaves Resistance as one of the strongest boons in the game

• I can get behind changing Retaliation into an effect like Alacrity is. Its pretty strong, and this would make it easier to balance skills that apply Retaliation since you would no longer be able to increase the duration of it. But it could stay a boon and I would still be fine.

Overview

• Disagree with removing Vigor and merging its effects with Regeneration
• Disagree with merging Resistance and Protection
• Agree with nerfing Resistance from 100% immunity to condis to something more reasonable, like 50%
• Agreed with removing Fury and merging it into Might
• Overall, 10 boons (or 9 if Retaliation was made into an effect) instead of the 11 we have now

Edit @Sarrs – I disagree that traits like those mean that burning and bleed are mechanically different. The two condis are mechanically exactly the same right now. Pure DoT effects. The only difference between them is which traits affect which condition (which allows for more specialized builds), but that doesn’t mean the condis function differently.

The sheer Massive amount of rebalancing that’d follow a patch like this…

First, you’d have to rework every Profession from the bottom up, starting with accessible Boons and conditions, then Specializations, then Weapon Skills, then Utility Skills.

Then you’d have to rework all the Runes, Sigils and Available Food relating to Conditions.

Then you’d have to rework Condition interaction and stacking, test it internally against every Boss of every part of the game, from the common Champions to the World Bosses to the Raid Bosses, and once that is done you can start the internal testing in a PvP environment, both small-scale and WvW.

Then you’d have to deal with an entire forum of people unhappy with the changes.

Lotsa work there.

Sarrs.4831:

Yes but how does it suffer. On a play-to-play basis, what precisely about the amount of conditions and boons is making the game difficult, unfun, confusing or unhealthy?

Visual clutter and the sheer amount of different conditions- condi clear skills can’t keep up.

Black Iris Flowers.3418:

Visual clutter and the sheer amount of different conditions- condi clear skills can’t keep up.

Visual clutter is subjective and in a small-team format is rarely relevant. Are you unable to identify specific conditions at a glance? You do not necessarily need to identify every aspect of a condi bomb in order to identify it and use your own counters. More often than not, the conditions that you can expect to face are very straightforward from having a loose understanding of your opponent’s abilities, and an understanding of what can be sent back to you or which boons can be flipped on you.

Condi clear skills being unable to keep up is by design. You should need to build specifically to counter conditions in a 1v1 fight because fights need to actually end. Condi spread from multiple condition users is also by design; just as more conditions from different enemies come in you have more condition clears coming in from your own friends.

If excessive condi coverage is an issue then it is far less work to address condition clearing skills rather than reworking the system.

as a fervent condition player I’d say:

1st) bleeding has use as cover condition having bleeds will make for basic DOT while protecting other conditions from stripping… This is also why burning guard and burning tempest are less effective in comparison to multi-condition users.
2nd) immobilize is extremely usefull in a lot of circumstances (as CC yes,) but also keeping enemies and self in a specific place, unlike chill/cripple which still allow for movement.
3rd) poison is a healing effeciveness reduction 1st and a stacking condition second
4th) confusion and torment are shutdown conditions… meant to reduce movement and skill use. The combination is exceptionally powerfull….especially high stacks of confusion requiring a significant hit to remove…
5th) fire is likely more redundant then bleeds… Then again you can light up almost any item, bleeding a wooden door to death feels less… well… immersing/immersive … I’d like a spreading option.. It would add something really nice to the condition builds….

6th) I’d like dazes and stuns to be combined. their differences in use are trivial at best. this should make stunbreaks more usefull
7th) I’d like stealth and invisibility to be fused… so they’ll allow duration stacking and no longer cancel eachother out.

Removing bleeds to benefit small duration burns will change DOT more towards DPS while removing pressure. It would remove the 1 thing conditions would be really good at…. forcing any burst build opponent to fight -now-!

I’d say most condi cleanses are weak at best especially the personal condition cleanses often still clean 1 condition….. also the boon ‘resistance’ is pretty weak, often just reducing 4 or 5 ticks, I’d rather see a 50% decrease in condition dmg for a double the length period (8-10 secs maybe even a bit more) providing some protection more comparable to protection while still allowing pure condition builds to do some dmg….

Turning stealth into a boon would be awful. Especially if you combined it with invisibility so that thieves and PU mesmers could attack and remain stealthed. Absolutely cannot support that change.

Black Iris Flowers.3418:

I really don’t like Petrification, it’s like getting killed for being unlucky if you’re hit critically. Total immobility is enough. I do like the cripple/torment merge. Question: how does Fatigue affect players?

I do support the general proposal that Break Bars need to become an integrated part of the games combat system.

I removed in my tweaked version here also Knockdown for a reason, because Knockdown should become the state a character should get into, when an enemy breaks their Break Bar through enough Crowd Control Effects, before the affected Character gets then into a period of becoming immune to further Ckittenil their break bar has recovered.

Think of the Break Bar as a Value of 100 Points displayed as a Bar.
Every CC that hits you will cost that Bar a specific amount of Ponts from that value.

The effect of Fatigue is very simple examplained and peopel which played already Guild Wars 1 to know the condition Deep Wound from it, will instantly know how that condition will work on the Break Bar.
But for those that don’t have played ever GW1 yet.
here the easy explanation.

Break Bar of you without Fatigue = 100%
Break Bar of you with Fatigue = Only 80% of the Bar, thus it becomes easier for enemies to deplete it to 0 to break it and get you knocked down, while you are fatigued, which is a new kind of Hard CC that indirectly working like a Soft CC to make it other CC’s easier to do their job successfully.

Break Efficiency

Full Bar = 100%/100 Points

Each kind of either Soft or Hard CC would get have different effective results on reducing the Break Bar.
Stability = Nullifies Effects on the Break Bar per Stack
Resistance = Increases Break Bar Regen by +5/Second per Stack
Cripple = -2 Points Degen/Second
Chill = -2 Point/Second
Blindness = -1 Point/Second
Weakness= Increases Direct Reductions from Hard CC’s by additional -2 Points
Fear = -4 Points/Second
Pulls/Launches = Direct Reduction of -10
Petrification = -8 Points/Second
Stun = -5 Points on every Auto Interupt
Daze = Direct Reduction of -10
Fatigue = Reduces Break Bar from 100 to 80 Points (-20% Max)

SO brief said, under Fatigue, a victim would need to get instead of 10x dazed, only 8x dazed to break the bar to knockdown your enemy.

Knockdown State = Gives Enemy the Chance to Stomp the Player, if the knocked downed Player doesn’t have a Stun Break at that moment ready to stand up again directly.

This way the player has to be cautious about their Break Bar, if you don’t want to give your Enemy an opportunity to easily kill you in a moment of your defenseless weakness, while having Stun Breakers with you will become also more impactful to give your enemy not that chance to defeat you in a defenseless moment when they successfulyl could knock you down after breaking your Break Bar.

Just a simple concept of how it could get to work. But in my opinion a system liek that would make battles in GW2 alot more interesting and fun, when you can get to defeat your enemies also, without needing to punch them first to a pump and brign them to Downed State, just to stomp them, when you could do that also by knocking them down, after breaking their defense by depleting the Break Bar of the Enemy to 0 with CC’s – soft ones as like hard ones.

OriOri.8724:

Black Iris Flowers.3418:

Opopanax.1803:

I don’t get the Bleed hate. It is a pure DoT effect that males sense with cutting/stabbing. Burning and poison don’t cover this type of theme.

People find the purpose of it redundant; there’s already 2 damage over time conditions (burn and poison). Thematically yes it does fit and that’s why it’s in the game.

Well, right now its kind of redundant since its no different from burning. But if burning were to be given a secondary effect, then Bleeding would have a place as the pure DoT condition (or vice versa)

Yeah, I agree with this train of thought – since burning stacks now, it and bleeding are essentially the same. But bleeding is too flavorful to remove from the game. Differentiating it and leaving it in is probably the best option.

I understand what the OP is trying to do, but collapsing Might into a strength + crit boon is probably not a good idea. Crit spike builds and base strength builds are very different things. Putting those boons together every time would just hardpush all-out berserker builds again.

Black Iris Flowers.3418:

Sarrs.4831:

Yes but how does it suffer. On a play-to-play basis, what precisely about the amount of conditions and boons is making the game difficult, unfun, confusing or unhealthy?

Visual clutter and the sheer amount of different conditions- condi clear skills can’t keep up.

If condi clear could keep up, then its nullified as a damage source. Considering it meant to be an entire wing of build dynamics, and whose damage is explicitly designed to bypass armor, your solution is to remove 1/3 of all builds from the meta to reduce the number of icons you need to look at. And no…. reducing the number of condi removal effects only makes their impact more significant. The Control conditions/boons are extremely polarizing as is; and the DOTs are meant to be stable pressure via damage.

This same problem also exists in Power builds, but we take it granted because the mitigation methods are more intuitive.

Players don’t think they have agency, because the timing of these skills are very tight….. which is ironic considering GW2 community is often accused of being too casual.