Guild Wars 2

So, as stated in recent announcements and streams, both poison and burning will become intensity-stacking conditions in HoT. While burning is just a basic “damage per second” condition, poison does some damage (much less than burning, but some) and also has the -33% healing received boost to its effectiveness.

I suggest that, as poison damage will stack in intensity, the heal reduction should too.

In PvP, this would prevent people from merely taking an on-swap sigil to poison enemies and have literally nothing to do with poison and sometimes even conditions. It would be like vulnerability, where applying one stack is weak, but when you get 25 stacks it is quite significant. A stronger poison should reduce healing more.

In PvE, many bosses don’t heal anyway, but it would encourage team play and combo finishers to stack up poison if the boss is prepping a heal. I feel this is much more engaging than just making sure a single poison is ticking away on the boss.

My math is as follows (note, I’m not sure how many stacks these conditions will get in total, but it shouldn’t matter):
Poison stacks intensity, and the healing reduction would be -33% at its maximum value. At one stack of poison the target would receive -1.32% healing effectiveness and by 25 stacks the target would be at -33%. Every stack after 25 (if they add more) would only increase damage at this point.

Any thoughts?

So you want to nerf poison?

Diovid.9506:

So you want to nerf poison?

I’m sure there’s a way to work around it so that it’s not actually a nerf, like increasing damage. My point is that stacking poison beyond 1 stacks introduces diminishing returns immediately, even though it’s a damage-dealing condition. That encourages people to play with weak poison values just to get it ticking, not because it’s a condition that does anything spectacular.

No, just no. Having to stack poison to 25 stacks just to get -33% healing on Warrior’s Healing Signet……..no thank you.

Shaogin.2679:

No, just no. Having to stack poison to 25 stacks just to get -33% healing on Warrior’s Healing Signet……..no thank you.

Isn’t Healing Signet the most OP heal in the game though? Wouldn’t it be better for them to rework that at the same time as they implement any changes to this condition?

MiniEquine.6014:

Shaogin.2679:

No, just no. Having to stack poison to 25 stacks just to get -33% healing on Warrior’s Healing Signet……..no thank you.

Isn’t Healing Signet the most OP heal in the game though? Wouldn’t it be better for them to rework that at the same time as they implement any changes to this condition?

Nerfing healing signet just means they buff everything else if you want warriors to have actual sustain. Ele sustain is overpowered, but it’s split into 20 different mechanics, instead of just one, so it’s a harder target for QQ.

People don’t (shouldn’t) have an issue with the numbers healing signet and I guess adrenal surge put out. The issue is that there’s not much counterplay, compared to something like troll unguent for example. Signet can’t be interrupted, it can’t be forced to be activated either. The only counter is one shotting the warrior (which is pretty hard compared to other classes, this is the one time high health/armor can be used in an argument and not be kittened and wrong) or poison uptime, which warriors can’t really cleanse like another profession due to the HOT mechanic they have.

Larynx.2453:

MiniEquine.6014:

Shaogin.2679:

No, just no. Having to stack poison to 25 stacks just to get -33% healing on Warrior’s Healing Signet……..no thank you.

Isn’t Healing Signet the most OP heal in the game though? Wouldn’t it be better for them to rework that at the same time as they implement any changes to this condition?

Nerfing healing signet just means they buff everything else if you want warriors to have actual sustain. Ele sustain is overpowered, but it’s split into 20 different mechanics, instead of just one, so it’s a harder target for QQ.

People don’t (shouldn’t) have an issue with the numbers healing signet and I guess adrenal surge put out. The issue is that there’s not much counterplay, compared to something like troll unguent for example. Signet can’t be interrupted, it can’t be forced to be activated either. The only counter is one shotting the warrior (which is pretty hard compared to other classes) or poison uptime, which warriors can’t really cleanse like another profession due to the HoT mechanic they have.

So maybe I’m being too lenient with my suggestion then. What if instead of 1.32% every stack, it was -6.6% per stack up to 5 stacks where it would hit -33% but then continue to stack damage.

My biggest concern with it is that it is becoming an intensity-stacking condition with a mechanic that primarily benefits a duration-stacking condition. It’s already fairly weak damage-wise, and if the only reason people take it is for the -33% healing, then they have no reason to stack poison as opposed to most of the other conditions.

MiniEquine.6014:

Larynx.2453:

MiniEquine.6014:

Shaogin.2679:

No, just no. Having to stack poison to 25 stacks just to get -33% healing on Warrior’s Healing Signet……..no thank you.

Isn’t Healing Signet the most OP heal in the game though? Wouldn’t it be better for them to rework that at the same time as they implement any changes to this condition?

Nerfing healing signet just means they buff everything else if you want warriors to have actual sustain. Ele sustain is overpowered, but it’s split into 20 different mechanics, instead of just one, so it’s a harder target for QQ.

People don’t (shouldn’t) have an issue with the numbers healing signet and I guess adrenal surge put out. The issue is that there’s not much counterplay, compared to something like troll unguent for example. Signet can’t be interrupted, it can’t be forced to be activated either. The only counter is one shotting the warrior (which is pretty hard compared to other classes) or poison uptime, which warriors can’t really cleanse like another profession due to the HoT mechanic they have.

So maybe I’m being too lenient with my suggestion then. What if instead of 1.32% every stack, it was -6.6% per stack up to 5 stacks where it would hit -33% but then continue to stack damage.

My biggest concern with it is that it is becoming an intensity-stacking condition with a mechanic that primarily benefits a duration-stacking condition. It’s already fairly weak damage-wise, and if the only reason people take it is for the -33% healing, then they have no reason to stack poison as opposed to most of the other conditions.

That’s still a nerf. Generally when you try to change something for the better, like encouraging the use of a mechanic, you don’t do it by nerfing it. That’s like trying to encourage every household to own three fire extinguishers by burning down the neighborhood to spread awareness of the risk of house fires.

Reward proper play. That’s how you make people use a mechanic without also kittening them off. How that should be done, I don’t know. Maybe reduce duration of poison universally, make each stack add a large amount (10%?) of healing reduction. The only issue with that is that it doesn’t necessarily reduce the likelihood people will stop spamming their poisons. It’s already finicky enough for most professions to poison a heal reactively instead of proactively. It nerfs doom at least. Engineer grenades might get a little OP though.

I agree. But instead, Condi gear should determine the % heal reduced. This will give condi classes the attrition role.

So, 1.32% can be increased to 5% per a stack if the player is speccing for condi.

Gotta be honest… not a fan of this idea. Poison is a great counterplay to healing, and it is great in that the hefty reduction to healing forces a reaction. I’m speaking here from both a heal/support player and a condi player perspective.

MattyP.6954:

Gotta be honest… not a fan of this idea. Poison is a great counterplay to healing, and it is great in that the hefty reduction to healing forces a reaction. I’m speaking here from both a heal/support player and a condi player perspective.

Like I said before though, it’s fine as it is for a duration-stacking condition. I’m just trying to see how it would make sense to change the condition type to intensity-stacking and not change its effects. As it is, multiple skills will likely apply more than one poison stack. There are instances where 10 bleeds can be applied at once; I don’t see any reason why the thief dagger AA chain #3 can’t apply 5 stacks per hit or something.

Does anybody remember seeing anything in the first beta about how poison worked? Did it stack back then, or was it still duration?

Larynx.2453:

Ele sustain is overpowered, but it’s split into 20 different mechanics, instead of just one, so it’s a harder target for QQ.

Not to say that ele sustain doesn’t have any room for adjustment, but is this really comparable if it takes that much more effort to keep up your sustain? Healing Signet grants it to you for doing literally nothing at all.