Guild Wars 2

Since I previously looked into how increased and decreased condition durations can effect fear, I wanted to isolate and look at just decreased stun duration and how that interacted with fear. The claim being that Melandru runes were “double dipping” and reducing fear even further because of their 25% reduction to all conditions and 25% reduction to stun duration.

Turns out, that decreased stun duration does work on fear. So Melandru runes give a total of -50% duration to fear. Very powerful against a condition which is already very short in base duration.

Video showing reapers protection at increased 100% duration (2 seconds base to 4 seconds total), first against a target with no decreased stun duration, then against the same target using Bowl of roasted lotus root (-40% stun duration).

I have two follow-up tests I would like to do – once I can located a Melandru user in our new WvW matchup this week. (not sure who we get yet)

1. Does Sigil of Paralyzation INCREASE fear duration.
2. A full Melandru user with Lemongrass poultry has -90% duration to fear. I want to test that against 90% increased duration to fear to verify they cancel each other out (which should mirror and support my other test).

EDIT: Forgot to thank Becho for the help, an old friend from WoW, Thanks!

EDIT 2: I got a chance to test Sigil of Paralyzation with fear. Turns out that it does indeed increase fear duration.

Tested using terror, which ticks damage every second with fear. First fear was with 90% duration, second was with 90% duration and 15% from the sigil. Note the second damage tick in the second test, but not the first.

I thought it was common knowledge that fear counts as a stun and condition. It even says that on the wiki. I wouldnt count on mesmer runes or sigil of para working though. Take basilisk venom as example. supposed to turn you to stone, but it was changed to be able to stun broke out of, making it a stun, but it is not affected by + stun duration, despite being affected by stun breakers. Wouldnt surprise me if fear was in the same spot, all the negatives of being a stun, none of the positives

Counting as a stun for the purposes of breaking stun, and counting as a stun for the purposes of reducing the duration of the effect are two different things. I also never trust the wiki unless I first test.

The wiki makes no mention that fear duration is reduced by stun reduction, which is what I was testing. It only makes mention that stun breaks work on fear.

I am okay with it being common knowledge though, as long as it is right. I just like to have documented tests of these things to dispell rumors.

This is HUGE. What it basically means is that you can squeeze out the 100% fear duration in spvp even without bugged runes nor going 30 to spite.

Ren,
There is another thread, I’ll have to look for it, where that exact test was done multiple times, and it seems to show that + duration and – duration cancel each other out. As in the – duration affects the base duration only, so as long as you have good condition duration bonus or good stun duration bonus, the negative duration items cant totally eliminate your condi/stuns. (As in the warrior/ele trait + melandru + lemongrass= 96% reduction to chill/cripple/immob)