Break bars when did they change?
Aren’t Break Bars affected by control effects, rather than just conditions?
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defiance_Bar
Not every condition affects the break bar. Fear, Taunt, Immob, Chill, Blind, Weakness, Slow, and Cripple are the soft CC effects that work. The other conditions work as on normal mob, including Vuln.
It varies, OP. Some mobs with defiance don’t have much health; you can easily DPS them down (condi builds are especially effective for this). Other mobs have stronger break bars. Sometimes scaling affects the amount of defiance, so the exact same target can be ‘broken’ by a single person in 1:1, but might take 2-3 people’s worth of CC when fighting against a small group.
Nothing substantial has changed in months. I don’t recall that vulnerability ever contributed — maybe it was a skill that applied vulnerability while also causing some CC?
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
I noticed your other thread also mentioned Lake Doric. I’ve noticed both effects you describe, however not a regular occurences. My suspicion is that because the map is so small, mobs are more susceptible to nearby, roaming players scaling mobs and events up.
I had a real job breaking a Cannon down yesterday and then the next cannon was easy. Seemed like on the first cannon a lot of players were nearby but not participating in the event. I’ve noticed the same with random mobs health and damage too, which is likely down to the same factor.
So, as far as I can tell, there is no direct issue with breakbars/cc effects (I also was under the impression vulnerability never affected breakbars)
Vulnerability used to be how my power Necro would down cannons in Lake Doric for the longest time it’s just been a few months since I’d been in Doric with a Necro. The axe would quickly stack vuln and the bar would break in short order. Now it has no effect (this may have been a bug that was fixed, that I’m unsure of but for the longest time vulnerability worked on cannon’s defiance bar). I’ve also noticed in HOT it seems to take forever for bars to break if ever. It may be that certain conditions no longer affect these as much as they used to, it just makes it super frustrating that cc is basically impossible without large stacks against most defiance bars. This has been the main reason many of the toons I play are just becoming unusable with the content since I have to run solo a lot.
Vulnerability never worked on defiance bars, as its not a control condition
I can all but guarantee that Vuln has never degenned break bars.
In addition to the player scaling as mentioned, is it possible that you aren’t corrupting boons or transferring conditions as much? The Jade cannons throw cripple and slow through Spectral Agony and gain boons from Power of the Bloodstone. Doing both would hit them with at least half of the CC conditions.
The axe would quickly stack vuln and the bar would break in short order.
You likely weren’t noticing the people gliding. You gain the glider skills from Bloodstone Fen when you touch the ley lines and a single barrage can take out the shield. The range is far enough that you’ll never see them do it, only the hit. With the AFKers dominating the map nowadays, you’re far more likely to be the only one there.
I’m one of those who has only recently become aware of the defiance bar and how to attack it and I’ve seen that it acts differently on different mobs. On some it seems to have very little influence on how much damage you can do and on others, it’s critical to break it in order to do any appreciable damage.
This is a problem. A mechanic should work the same across all mobs. Someone new to this might ignore the break bar because of all the ones they’ve downed without doing anything about it, then come across one like Vinetooth Prime where it’s critical to break it and not know what to do.
Every mob is different. That is a good thing. You need to learn the best way to deal with each of them: that is also part of the challenge, and the fun.
“Only problem with the Engineer is
that it makes every other class in the game boring to play.”
Hawks
that it makes every other class in the game boring to play.”
Hawks
I’m one of those who has only recently become aware of the defiance bar and how to attack it and I’ve seen that it acts differently on different mobs. On some it seems to have very little influence on how much damage you can do and on others, it’s critical to break it in order to do any appreciable damage.
Some enemies have higher vitality and a larger health pool. Some enemies have higher healing power and receive more healing. The break bar is no different. You can think of it as a health bar where the enemy has a constant source of regeneration. Just like damaging ability, CCs deal direct damage to the break bar while CC conditions deal damage over time. What they need to change is actually showing it.
I agree with Ardid and Healix: the game is more interesting & fun for me because the developers use the defiance bar creatively.
It’s true there’s no good tutorial so it’s hardly surprising that some (such as Sarpan) have only recently begun to understand it. All the same, there are all sorts of mobs that use defiance simplistically, so there’s still plenty of opportunity to get in some good experience dealing with it.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
Yeah, I see your point. The real problem, I guess, is that way too many players have no idea what the break bar does and what to do about it, and those differences between mobs obscures it a bit.
Maybe more “in your face” information would be helpful somewhere along the line.
Or, it’s just something that Anet wants to leave out there for players to figure out on their own from experience and from interacting with others, which also has merits.