Guild Wars 2

Gotta give you 1 point for making hostile NPCs in the new Bloodstone Fen gain 3 boons.

But during this initial experience, I’ve only found some erratic reapplication of boons, sometimes the 3 boons are reapplied and I don’t understand how it does it…

Is there ever gonna be a attempt on making Open world PvE utilize same mechanics as players are able to do? Instead of limiting such mechanics to PvP and Hard PvE content…

Giving them some abilities to gain or grant boons quite reliably shouldn’t make them impossible to defeat.
But as long as they don’t devolve into the vanilla type mobs, which can’t deal damage, use boon, sport high HP and very low armor…

Like example:

Warrior type hostile NPCs could get the ability to use a copy of the skill “For Great Justice!”, with same durations and cooldowns, give out 20 secs of 3 stack might and 8 secs of fury with cooldown of 20 secs. Maybe even make some greatsword wielding NPCs to gain boons when using some multi-attack skill similar to “Hundred Blades” that gives a boon with every successful hit.

Elementalists could gain stack of might for 10 seconds for each use of their skills, and some skills could grant boons with successfully hitting the player.

Mesmers steal boons (which is used in some extent so far).

Rangers could utilize boons depending on wether they’re beastmasters (use shouts to buff themselves and pet) or marksmen (utilize some “On the mark” type skill that gives boons if it hits an enemy).

Necromancers could utilize deathshroud and gain might with lifeblasts and more might when hitting enemy below 50% HP, while condition based would corrupt boons. Maybe even make a Order Necro that sacrifices health to give boons.

Guardian type NPCs could remove boons by setting enemy on fire at set intervals similar to Virtue of Justice charge system and old “Searing Flames” trait, and have ability to block attacks like a shield bubble of Shield of Absorbtion unlike the old “shield stance” that channels for 3 seconds and only blocks of 1 seconds after completing the channel. Maybe even shout that grants Retaliation for 3-5 seconds but doesn’t apply if ally already has retaliation.

Engineer type NPCs with “chemical” bombs could remove boons and apply random boons on themselves with their own “elixirs”.

Thieves prolly don’t have much of use for boons tho, maybe able to steal them and apply to their allies like player thieves can do. Although bigger problem is that they can’t really utilize dodging even now…

Revenants could utilize the Herald and Dwarven type of abilities to buff their allies.