Guild Wars 2

Do other teammates even care to take advantage of your fields? Me as an ele, in hotjoins at least, I always start with 4 stacks of might out the gate. But hardly anyone steps into the field or blasts it. Seems like all these finishers just happen randomly. Also consider ele’s with staff provide arguably the most usable fields and can blast them by himself, yet aren’t viable in higher-tier tournaments.

I suggest buffing blast finishers for Retaliation, Chaos and Frost Armor to 5 sec.
I’m not sure of the others but Whirl and Projectile finishers don’t seem to do all that much.

They’re strong, and there’s certainly a noticeable difference between utilizing them and not, also idk why you’d lead off with might, that won’t help much at the start of the match, swiftness however will.

yeah would be nice to see frost armor not be useless tbh

Darek.1836:

yeah would be nice to see frost armor not be useless tbh

10% damage reduction and chill on hit isn’t really useless…

Durzlla.6295:

They’re strong, and there’s certainly a noticeable difference between utilizing them and not, also idk why you’d lead off with might, that won’t help much at the start of the match, swiftness however will.

I still apply swiftness. The might lasts for 20 sec, enough time in some maps for ppl to engage.

They’re incredibly powerful, but people will never do much with them in hotjoins or solo queues. Coordinating finishers between multiple players takes a lot of effort, so they’re currently most used in PvP as single-person chains of skills. There are notable exceptions (for example, caed repeatedly blasting a healing spring using clusterbomb.)

I suppose you could argue that a full-support build should be competitive—something that could never stand on its own but was invaluable to the team because of combo fields. But I think that would end up feeling boring and cheesy.

Combo fields aren’t too weak, some of them are arguably too strong, especially with the disparity of fields/finishers on certain classes.

NevirSayDie.6235:

They’re incredibly powerful, but people will never do much with them in hotjoins or solo queues. Coordinating finishers between multiple players takes a lot of effort, so they’re currently most used in PvP as single-person chains of skills. There are notable exceptions (for example, caed repeatedly blasting a healing spring using clusterbomb.)

I suppose you could argue that a full-support build should be competitive—something that could never stand on its own but was invaluable to the team because of combo fields. But I think that would end up feeling boring and cheesy.

This explains it pretty well, and I’ve actually built a guardian like that and it has allowed my MM friend and my guardian to 2v5 4/5 (8/10) enemy teams we’ve fought in tPvP using it, only 2 we had issues with were based around tons of AoE CC, but they kinda banked on that seeing as how our stability spamming ele could pretty much 1v5 them …

Some are strong, some are awful. Most projeciles and whirls are bad, most blasts and leaps are good.

I have been saying for over a year(mostly to my friends playing, mind you), that combo finishers should be more important for the gameplay.

Right now, it feels like you are playing a “lone wolf” game, when you consider that the potential of combo fields is not being fully used.
It is every man for himself in terms of build setup. Everyone who wants to do dps is able to get Fury and Might(and even 2-3 boons more) themselves, with no need to rely on Allies.

My idea is that combofields/finishers should be the main application of boons, and be a bit more important as a way to apply control effects and conditions(like cripple and immobilize).

So, to get a long duration of Protection or Swiftness, you would have to rely combofinishers, rather than gimmicky builds.
Same with other boons and conditions.

Stuff like Warhorns and Shouts would ofc stay as is. They might not be combofields, but the have a similar effect, as in, being a team buffer.

Ofc, each class should be able to have some minor “self buffs”(usually through traits), but they should be utilities which compliment combos, not overshadowering them completely.

So combo fields would have stronger effects, and would be essential in high tier play.
I’m guessing that it would make for a more team oriented gameplay and more “skillfull”, because utilizing your teammates combofields and finishers would be essential to Victory in battle.
A well placed combofield would mean your Allies would benefit greatly in the fight.
It would bring back the support aspect of the game, instead of having only tanks and damage.

Slightly off topic:
If we go back to GW1, we had some highly speciallized builds which relied on your team to Work. There were few “I can do everything myself” builds, if not only because you needed a healer nearby(in most cases…).

As you have access to your own heals and buffs in GW2, you dont “need” your team for other than focusing a target(or avoid being focused yourself) or to ress you.
A lot of games can make do without team buffing, but in GW2 we have combofields, and some classes/weapons have a high number of them, so it would be silly to not use them.

A staff ele is a good example. You have a lot of utility fields, but it is very hard to pull off something decent, when noone cares if they get your effect or not. Most of the time, it would be better for your(and your team) to just focus on yourself and dont risk using the combo fields(which half the time is a waste of 2 skills).

Knowledge and use of combo fields and finishers can change the tide of war. Way too few know this and rarely uses them. I try to abuse combo fields I see if I can or if I see the need to buff my group by using them. Well timed use of combos can save a friend or give the final touch to end the enemy.

But I see you mentioned hot join, don’t ever expect to see any skilled players there. You’ll find way more use of combos in tPvP.

Blasts and Leaps are extremely powerful.
Most projectiles, not so much.
Whirls are pretty good.

for projectiles, Light Fields are easily the best ( cleanse 1 condi in AoE @ point of impact ).

Fire is decent for 1 extra burn tic, Water gives 1 tic of AoE regen.

in general i think projectile finishers should be weaker since they are safer to execute than point blank effects like blast / leap.

I use leap finisher all the time when I see fields. Low skill dazing, healing, acces to stealth. But yeah, the fields are mostly placed down on an individual reasoning (static field to stun people, not to grant ability for allies to daze through them, or fire fields for burning instead of granting partywide might).
So the usage of the combo is mostly per accident. With the field being used for personal gain, while the finisher is used when allies just like to do it.

As a staff ele u can do some nice stuff, and other clases have some too. However, is extremely unreliable, most of the time u will use the fields and ur teammates will ignore them. Even with that, healing ur teammates by water field + all the blasts u have is nice.

BUT, what’s the point ? U have other clases that can put massive aoe damaging fire field and become immune to all conditions (no freeze, cripple or anything) and stun over and over till u die. Support in this game is mostly useless because of how overpowered are most builds/classes used in spvp. Whenever i play staff ele, it’s the only time i don’t feel i’m cheating.

How long is the Daze on leap+lightning field combo? The wiki doesn’t say anything.

Frankly, the biggest problem with fields right now, from my standpoint as an ele, is other fields that are less valuable interfering.
It might make sense to allow each player a hierarchy in options to determine which fields get your finishers first. It’s always a pain when a hammer guardian starts putting all these useless light fields around and I miss my might/AoE heals.

I utilize them and mine are used as well. But I almost always play with guildmates and/or people I’ve played with before and have synergy with. You start to pick up the rhythms of those you play with often, and they yours — that is when combo fields become fully integrated and extremely strong. In hotjoins, 9 times out of 10 the combo finishers are pure chance. I personally keep my eye out for the kinds of fields I want at any given time and take advantage of them when the opportunity presents itself.

As far as finisher types, I almost exclusively use blast and leap, though some projectiles, such as condition removal, can be invaluable as well (despite the crappy proc rate).

Blast finishers are so good and can be gamechanging. Leaps often do the same but only for the char leaping. Projectile and whirls are less powerful but still have their place. Good Engi and Eles are pushed to their highest potential through usage of combos, it’s integral to the playstyle.

Players that don’t value combos simply don’t understand how powerful they can be yet, you should help them

Biomanz.9302:

Do other teammates even care to take advantage of your fields? Me as an ele, in hotjoins at least, I always start with 4 stacks of might out the gate. But hardly anyone steps into the field or blasts it. Seems like all these finishers just happen randomly. Also consider ele’s with staff provide arguably the most usable fields and can blast them by himself, yet aren’t viable in higher-tier tournaments.

I suggest buffing blast finishers for Retaliation, Chaos and Frost Armor to 5 sec.
I’m not sure of the others but Whirl and Projectile finishers don’t seem to do all that much.

fields were just terribly made, much like conditions.
If combo fields were more regulated, if the map was setup for more team (2+ people) based fighting…
Like if the game wasn’t conquest and every class had one utility slot dedicated to a combo field ability and that was largely the only way to get a combo field, then combos could be strongly balanced since they aren’t just additions to utterly random weapon attacks.

Then they could be built around and played around, they could bring large amounts of teamwork, exc. exc.

But how they are right now… they will only ever fall into rotations on guardian/thief/ranger/engi weapon sets. If combos were buffed those rotations become stronger…
The game doesn’t get any better.

i like fields + combos but i think they need some work

blast finshers are fine but some classes have to much and some none
and everyone can see for combosystem aoe > singletarget
noone rly use singletarget combos – only randomly

Only map where you should start might is spirit watch.

Romek.4201:

noone rly use singletarget combos – only randomly

That’s because in teamfights (and even 1v1 in some cases) single-target is so weak compared to AoE.