Guild Wars 2

Venoms would be fine if they just lowered their cooldowns (except for the elite) and then made it so that you could only have one venom at a time. Using a new venom would then replace any older venom on your weapon.

Dahkeus.8243:

Orpheal.8263:

Dahkeus.8243:

JonPeters.5630:

Dahkeus.8243:

Josh Davis.6015:

Way to go, Jon…making me look bad!

Aww, don’t be such a grouch! Oh wait…

As for the new heals, I’m sure this will be good for some classes, but on my thief, I feel like I already have some of the best heals in the game. It’s going to be tough to add something that will appeal to me more than Withdraw or Hide in Shadows.

P.s. I’d rather see more Elites added than either heals or utilities.

Oh the new thief heal is going to mix some things up for sure!!!

Ok, so, the rumored heal is a venom. If this rumor is false, then I guess I’ll eat my words, but if it really is a venom…I’ll never use it. Here’s why:

A venom heal only really makes sense on a venom build and venom builds are just weak. You have to sacrifice good utility to take venoms (AoE stealth, stun breaks, etc.) and in return, your attacks do condition damage.

If you want me to start considering venoms, then put some decent utility on them like a stun break or a gap closer. Or at least boost their damage so they can compete with a D/D damage build in PvE.

Thats the reason why I keep suggestign that Anet should finally redesign the thief by improvign them with INTEGRATED Venoms that can be used with F2-F4, to let them also have an influence on the weapon skills, being duration based and not hit based like the venoms work currently.

That way would thiefs become finally alot more unpredictable and would receive alot more build diversity. It would be such an easy way for Anet to make thiefs more nostalgic through implementing more old GW1 assassin skilsl within the through the venoms influenced changing weapon skills.

It would give also Anet the option to completely remove all of the current obsolete venom utility skills and especially the useless elite venom to replace them with more useful new utitlity/elite skilsl for the thief.

You know…I like that idea.

I know, because it would be a real conceptual gameplay improvement for the whole thief class

Proven.2854:

Venoms would be fine if they just lowered their cooldowns (except for the elite) and then made it so that you could only have one venom at a time. Using a new venom would then replace any older venom on your weapon.

Even that wouldn’t really work well because filling up your utilities with venoms means that you sacrifice:
– Stun breaker
– Condi removal
– Gap closer
– Shadow’s Refuge

If venoms could at least get a stun breaker and a condi removal, they might be able to competed with other options. It looks like this new heal will provide neither.

Dahkeus.8243:

Proven.2854:

Venoms would be fine if they just lowered their cooldowns (except for the elite) and then made it so that you could only have one venom at a time. Using a new venom would then replace any older venom on your weapon.

Even that wouldn’t really work well because filling up your utilities with venoms means that you sacrifice:
– Stun breaker
– Condi removal
– Gap closer
– Shadow’s Refuge

If venoms could at least get a stun breaker and a condi removal, they might be able to competed with other options. It looks like this new heal will provide neither.

I’m not asking for you to be able to fill up your entire bar, although it’d be trivially easy to make up some magic venom that was a stunbreaker or able to transfer conditions on hit. A lot of utilities are more interesting when you can only afford to have two of them on your bar, and being able to shift one to your healing skill would be great.

I’m asking for venoms to not be just some kind of weak burst mechanic that’s hampered by the existence of Main Hand Pistol’s Sneak Attack.

2 month old thread and a dev doesnt seem to notice/acknowledge it…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Shared-Venom-Spec-Suggestion/first#post3070830

Josh Davis.6015:

I think it’s safe to assume there will be additions to each of those areas at some point.

I don’t like to assume. Just tell me know the day you post it. :P

Countless

JonPeters.5630:

The reason we went with heal skills first is that we actually believe this is the highest impact area for build diversity.

1) it is a small pool to begin with so adding to it increases choice by a large %
2) it sees a lot of use
3) it heals you which is pretty important

As time goes on we will also introduce traits, utilities, elites, and potentially other stuff.

Jon

okay that makes sense. but dont think this will give you an excuse for not adding utility skills in the near future.

Zedd.8239:

I couldn’t disagree more. I mainly play as a guardian (in every area of the game) so I’ll use a guardian example. The 3 non-racial guardian healing skills are: Healing Breeze, Shelter, and Signet of Resolve. Your choice of healing skill has a tremendous impact on how you play the class. It can change how you position yourself, when you move out of combat, etc. Playing using Shelter has completely different ramifications than playing using Signet of Resolve or Healing Breeze.

Shelter is both a healing skill and a means to completely mitigate all incoming damage that can be blocked for 2 seconds. You can use this skill to survive tons of stuff you wouldn’t normally be able to withstand. Strategically use it to heal or get past certain control effects. Signet of Resolve has the highest burst heal of any guardian healing skill when activated. It has the bonus of removing conditions every 10 seconds when in passive mode. And Healing Breeze allows you to directly heal allies in addition to healing yourself.

Perhaps it’s a bit much to say that people would create builds around just these skills but there are traits that can have a large impact on them (e.g., Might of the Protector in the Valor trait line grants you might whenever you block — combine this with Shelter when under heavy fire and you can gain 25 stacks of might in 2 seconds simply by healing yourself) and those can be a game changer depending on what you choose.

I acknowledge that not all classes have quite the same play style options surrounding their choice of healing skills. In those cases, I think those classes need to see some changes to those skills to make them more viable in different situations.

Exactly, healing skills do have a role in how a class plays and this can be used to counter certain weaknesses depending on the meta. Shelter is great against burst while the signet is good against condi’s and pressure. Doesn’t exactly change the build but allows guardians more coverage in what metas they can deal with. Now I believe good coverage can be achieved with between 3-4 healing skills per profession if those skills are well designed. Some classes already have good coverage, others are lacking.

Ultimately though heals are very interchangeable between builds. A bit of a necessity with only 3 healing skills available. Like you said, a new heal is not going to make an underused weapon set viable. Now it could help make an entire profession viable in a meta they are currently unsuitable for. A good example would be mesmer not having a strong healing skill that can handle conditions, thus they are lacking coverage and can get shoved out of a condi heavy meta. A guardian on the other hand already has good coverage and a new healing skill would end up targeting a more niche area.

Now they could make the new heals synergize with traits that target a specific utility group. But… I always found that a silly approach because it takes away flexibility and isn’t that the role of utilities? Personally I would classify builds that rely heavily on these synergies while cutting themselves out of important mechanisms gimmicks. Like venom thieves or spirit rangers. The synergy leaves obvious holes in what they can handle. Now what if you could grab a single venom, have it still be on par with other utilities without the large investment and still have room to pick up a stunbreak? Of course you can kinda do this but it isn’t the ideal. Then utilities are more a way of refining your preferred playstyle.

Lighter.5631:

ronpierce.2760:

Inc ranger Healing spirit.

BobbyT.7192:

venom heal?

people are so smart!

so smart it hurts….like i’m crying right now

JonPeters.5630:

Dahkeus.8243:

Josh Davis.6015:

Way to go, Jon…making me look bad!

Aww, don’t be such a grouch! Oh wait…

As for the new heals, I’m sure this will be good for some classes, but on my thief, I feel like I already have some of the best heals in the game. It’s going to be tough to add something that will appeal to me more than Withdraw or Hide in Shadows.

P.s. I’d rather see more Elites added than either heals or utilities.

Oh the new thief heal is going to mix some things up for sure!!!

Sorry Jon, but I don’t see how this heal will mix anything up.
1 ) It has the longest CD of any thief heal (even with Quick Venoms)
2 ) Potential loss of heal on miss/block/etc.
3 ) No additional effect, such as condi cleanse, evade, etc.

I mean, I know it has some advantages (largest heal if all hits land, group heal), but neither of these are needed. Thieves have a low HP pool and therefore benefit more from frequent smaller heals and group healing is one of the weakest utilities in the game due to current mechanics.

If this was to coincide with some other venom buffs that made venom builds viable…I’d probably still use Withdraw or Hide in Shadows.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you put additional heal skills in the game and I appreciate the work you and the rest of your team has done with GW2, but I think this one really misses the mark.

JonPeters.5630:

The reason we went with heal skills first is that we actually believe this is the highest impact area for build diversity.

Playing to one of the strongest Ranger builds with even more animals for the ‘petting zoo’ is pretty much a clean miss for adding to diversity . Just sayin’.

OTOH healing venom-share along with some of the other Dec 10 changes could actually push a corner-case build into the spotlight.

Its a good effort overall. Looking forward to seeing more skills that expand on some of the exiting themes. Especially by adding or reassigning some skill tags to the exiting pool of elite skills.

P.S. Make the elite skill Entangle a ‘trap’ instead of a ‘wilderness’ skill and suddenly you’re on to something.

JonPeters.5630:

Oh the new thief heal is going to mix some things up for sure!!!

At least my feelings towards you.

A venom heal that is not affected by Venomous Aura, heals crap and even worse if you miss. Oh, and it doesn’t trigger on-heal effects at all.
Adding this skill in the way you are Hallelujah announcing it is outright insulting.

I don’t think the venom heal is inherently bad. The issue comes from venom builds being inherently inferior to other options since they prevent players from bringing vital utilities.

They also are so reliant on traits to work well, that the trade-offs you have to deal with in a venom build are really more punishing than running something like a direct damage Critical Strikes build.

JonPeters.5630:

The reason we went with heal skills first is that we actually believe this is the highest impact area for build diversity.

So we’re adding more passive heals for build diversity?

Does that mean that we’re going to need to counter passive effects actively again?

JonPeters.5630:

Dahkeus.8243:

Josh Davis.6015:

Way to go, Jon…making me look bad!

Aww, don’t be such a grouch! Oh wait…

As for the new heals, I’m sure this will be good for some classes, but on my thief, I feel like I already have some of the best heals in the game. It’s going to be tough to add something that will appeal to me more than Withdraw or Hide in Shadows.

P.s. I’d rather see more Elites added than either heals or utilities.

Oh the new thief heal is going to mix some things up for sure!!!

As a thief why would I use the venom heal when W/D or HiS is better?

Why should I subject myself to a chance of not getting the heal? (i.g. venom can be dodged, blocked, invul, miss, etc).

I know what you’re thinking. Venom share right? Sorry, if we go 30 points in SA, we do kitten damage and then why even bother taking a thief then?

Regarding build diversity. I’m all for it but I think you guys failed to look at the indirect impact it has on other class.

For example, P/P or S/P thief, if I see a necro with the new signet on plus maybe retal I would do 6-8K damage but in return I would receive 5K damage from signet and retal or 3K damage from the signet alone. So…if necro decide to take the new heal, this actually decreases build diversity albeit indirectly.