Balancing GW2
More skill updates. This time we take a look at healing skills.
Updated changes to [Reaper’s Mark] and the Ranger shortbow weapon skills.
Updated several Thief-related skill changes, particularly to what is currently [Pistol Whip].
It’s difficult. It isn’t OK to just Smiter’s Boon a skill anymore because we don’t have a plethora of slottable skills from which to choose when it comes to weapon skills. So when we come up to a skill-set that seems to break all the rules that are supposed to define GW2 combat, the only real option is to re-make the skills into something different but still functional.
I understand the basics of your post and agree for the most part.
>Trying to sneak new skills in a balance post is cheap and counter productive.
>Most of the longer cooldown skills should have 1/2 sec delay instead of 1 sec.
>Reapers mark: like the idea. Interrupt should not trigger full cd.
>Absolutely disagree on warrior heal sig. 3 sec of prot every 12 sec. 9 sec of regen every 12sec. Worst idea in your post.
>Warrior shield is fine.
>Giving a warrior more fury and might via Berserkers stance is a bad idea. They have such easy access to it already, and that is a problem.
>Engi elixir s is fine.
>Agree with thief sword changes.
>I see nothing wrong with stability as it is now. However, I think that some boons and conditons (namely stability, protection, poison, and burning) should have a duration stacking cap.
Team Deathmatch for PvP – Raise the AoE cap for WvW – More unique events for PvE
(edited by Stand The Wall.6987)
I understand the basics of your post and agree for the most part.
>Trying to sneak new skills in a balance post is cheap and counter productive.
What do you mean by that? What are some examples?
>Most of the longer cooldown skills should have 1/2 sec delay instead of 1 sec.
A 1-second delay is rather short. It’s a fair risk to apply to those skills since they’re all AoEs and can still hit with proper leading of a target.
>Reapers mark: like the idea. Interrupt should not trigger full cd.
Well, I think that it still would. Since the goal would be for it to chain into a skill that actually triggers it the second that you “finish” channeling, I’m not sure that it could be possible to make it so that the skill just restarted from the beginning if it were interrupted. That’s where positioning, timing and battlefield awareness comes in.
>Absolutely disagree on warrior heal sig. 3 sec of prot every 12 sec. 9 sec of regen every 12sec. Worst idea in your post.
I guess that I didn’t even think about the signet cool-down trait. The goal for that suggestion was to get Warriors to actually use the [Healing Signet] active ability. It would automatically be worse than the passive when it comes to sustainable hp regen, but at least there would be a bit of burst healing. Dunno, what would you suggest?
>Warrior shield is fine.
Blocks and invulnerabilities (which are effectively blocks) need to be greatly culled in GW2.
>Giving a warrior more fury and might via Berserkers stance is a bad idea. They have such easy access to it already, and that is a problem.
Could be. What would you suggest?
>Engi elixir s is fine.
See my reply to your shield comment.
>I see nothing wrong with stability as it is now. However, I think that some boons and conditons (namely stability, protection, poison, and burning) should have a duration stacking cap.
A duration stacking cap could be interesting, but what I’m trying to do with the intensity stacking paradigm is give CC a chance even if a player is using stability. CC is supposed to be such a big part of this game, but stability just says “Haha, nope,” every time. Even if there was a duration stacking limit to stability, that limit would still give the player complete movement impunity on the battlefield. If stability stacked in intensity, the player would still have to be a little careful about CC currently present on a battlefield instead of just skipping through everything and not giving any care.
Added skill changes for Engineer rifle and pistol.
What do you mean by that? What are some examples?
A 1-second delay is rather short. It’s a fair risk to apply to those skills since they’re all AoEs and can still hit with proper leading of a target.
Well, I think that it still would. Since the goal would be for it to chain into a skill that actually triggers it the second that you “finish” channeling, I’m not sure that it could be possible to make it so that the skill just restarted from the beginning if it were interrupted. That’s where positioning, timing and battlefield awareness comes in.
I guess that I didn’t even think about the signet cool-down trait. The goal for that suggestion was to get Warriors to actually use the [Healing Signet] active ability. It would automatically be worse than the passive when it comes to sustainable hp regen, but at least there would be a bit of burst healing. Dunno, what would you suggest?
Blocks and invulnerabilities (which are effectively blocks) need to be greatly culled in GW2.
Could be. What would you suggest?
See my reply to your shield comment.
A duration stacking cap could be interesting, but what I’m trying to do with the intensity stacking paradigm is give CC a chance even if a player is using stability. CC is supposed to be such a big part of this game, but stability just says “Haha, nope,” every time. Even if there was a duration stacking limit to stability, that limit would still give the player complete movement impunity on the battlefield. If stability stacked in intensity, the player would still have to be a little careful about CC currently present on a battlefield instead of just skipping through everything and not giving any care.
I mean that looking at this from a mathematical standpoint (and it seems you do) it makes no sense to add a new variable into the equation that still has unknown values. Examples include reapers wrath, shield slam, shoelace tangle, and poison volley. While all sound ideas I think its cheap to add them because a. one could argue that adding these skills was your goal from the beginning and b. there is no way to disprove that.
A 1 second delay combined with after cast is a long time for experienced players. Adding more obvious skill indicators on top of the delay would be too much.
Against classes that can interrupt at range often (thieves, mesmers) it would never trigger.
I think that a bigger active heal with a slightly less passive heal would do the trick.
They really dont. Its all some classes have to survive in drawn out fights. If you say blocks need to be culled then I could argue that stealth, clones, and basically any other defensive mechanism should suffer the same fate.
I suggest that condition duration be reduced while in Berserkers Stance but not to the point of invulnerability (when coupled with food and runes).
I think that this new stability idea should have its own thread. I will say that the biggest problem to this would be stacking stability before a fight begins and waiting for cooldowns to recharge. If anything this would be a huge buff, and it will definitely be abused in places like wvw.
Team Deathmatch for PvP – Raise the AoE cap for WvW – More unique events for PvE
(edited by Stand The Wall.6987)
I mean that looking at this from a mathematical standpoint (and it seems you do) it makes no sense to add a new variable into the equation that still has unknown values. Examples include reapers wrath, shield slam, shoelace tangle, and poison volley. While all sound ideas I think its cheap to add them because a. one could argue that adding these skills was your goal from the beginning
Shield Slam and Shoelace Tangle
The Engineer off-hand shield is a really good example of how block/invulnerability skills should work. Engineer off-hand shield has both offensive and defensive capabilities. Not only can an Engineer use off-hand shield as a means to slow an opponent’s offensive, the Engineer can get in someone’s face with it. This turns what would otherwise be just a “Haha, I’m going to stand here and be invincible” set-up into a set-up that can actually influence the direction of combat instead of just stop it for a few seconds.
If invulnerability skills weren’t so much invulnerability skills as they were very powerful re-positioning or CC skills, the game’s combat would feel a little more lively outside of “I’M GONNA HIT YOU,” and “OK, THEN I’M GONNA BE INVULNERABLE.”
Poison Volley
Conditions are out of control in this game. I’ll repost my summary of it that currently resides in another thread here later, but until then, effectively what I’m doing with a lot of condition-centric skills and procs is greatly reducing their spammability and adding more timing/position requirements to using such skills. This puts more risk into condition builds and helps rebalance the relationship between power and condition. The change to [Poison Volley] reflects this effort.
Reaper’s Mark
This is just to help [Reaper’s Mark] keep its nature as a mark while also giving the Necromancer more control on how to use it in a fight. The cast-time and animation also help to make the powerful skill fair for opponents.
A 1 second delay combined with after cast is a long time for experienced players. Adding more obvious skill indicators on top of the delay would be too much.
This is where leading a target comes into play as well as working with teammates to distract foes from watching their surroundings. This game needs more risk to skill-use. Post-cast effect delays is the best way to go about this with AoE skills.
Against classes that can interrupt at range often (thieves, mesmers) it would never trigger.
This is where teamwork comes into play again.
I think that a bigger active heal with a slightly less passive heal would do the trick.
I suppose that could work too.
They really dont. Its all some classes have to survive in drawn out fights. If you say blocks need to be culled then I could argue that stealth, clones, and basically any other defensive mechanism should suffer the same fate.
This comes back to my argument against a condition-meta. All of the invulnerability and blocking may almost be justified given the spam-centric, low-recharge nature of a condition-meta in GW2, but since GW2 should be balanced around risky, clearly cued, power-based attacks, invulnerability and blocking would quickly run rampant as a means to just slow all combat down to a crawl if it isn’t culled properly.
I suggest that condition duration be reduced while in Berserkers Stance but not to the point of invulnerability (when coupled with food and runes).
Eh, I guess that could be viable. Again, if we didn’t have a condition-meta, a nerf to [Berserker Stance] wouldn’t be that big of a deal, I guess.
I think that this new stability idea should have its own thread. I will say that the biggest problem to this would be stacking stability before a fight begins and waiting for cooldowns to recharge. If anything this would be a huge buff, and it will definitely be abused in places like wvw.
If the intensity stacking limit for stability was maybe 10, most stability durations were short, and any “long” durations of stability that came from utility skills only dolled out 1 or maybe 2 stacks of stability, it would be an overall nerf for the boon—which should be the goal if this game is to really see CC as a strong component to combat in pvp.
Also, you’re thinking of WvW. I steer away from WvW because it takes everything that makes PvP even remotely balanced, throws it out the window and laughs at it when it hits the street curb. The inflated stats, buffs everywhere and wildly fluctuation numbers in fights completely undermine any possibility of balance. It’s why we have zergs. The only way for any balance patch to actually have an effect on WvW would be if that balance patch also reduced the overall area of a WvW map by something like 66% and limited each server to 30 players per map instance.
CONDITION DAMAGE SHOULD BE SUPPLEMENT TO POWER DAMAGE
So? GW1 had tons of lame Teambuilds as well – it was part of the game.
If there’s no possibility of making insane Lamerbuilds like NecroSpike, IWAY, Rangespike and stuff like that, I think theres something missing. Yes; we all hated those builds in GW1 and being a Player that always wanted to win “the right way”, I’ve almost pulled out my hair a couple of times cuz of those builds; but it made the Meta interesting and forced ppl to be creative and come up with new strategies etc.
- In GW1, degen alone wasn’t necessarily a viable way to kill an opponent most of the time (either via hexes, conditions or a combination of the two).
- In GW1, there weren’t instant-activation passive procs everywhere. Players could actually see everything happening and triggering.
- In GW1, we had the “holy trinity” to deal with gimmicky spike team compositions like R-spike or even condition spam. IWAY and SWAY were nerfed. Necroway was sort of bandaid-nerfed with that weird update to protection prayers (although, that took ages). The reason R-spike stayed around for so long was because it was more fair than the others. R-spike required line-of-sight, it could be mitigated through protection prayers and blocks, and it also had a distinct cool-down on the spike around which the opposing team could play. There really wasn’t anything anyone could do most of the time against the other three gimmick comps. That’s the trick: in GW1, you actually had to land spells/attacks consistently and in a timely fashion in order to bring down an opponent.
- GW2 doesn’t have the “holy trinity” to deal with skills/skill spam that not only deals damage but that may also render an opponent helpless to either defend or retaliate with damage.
- The current GW2 condition-meta promotes mindless, ranged skill-spam that front-loads conditions onto low-recharge, fast-activating throwaway skills and rewards the condition player for spamming skills and then running around while auto-attacking for the rest of the encounter. Since there’s no one to remove conditions for you and condition players get conditions for free almost instantly and on incredibly short cool-downs, it just burns players out far more effectively than if the condition player just invested into power.
GW2 has made power less effective than condition damage. By doing so, ANet has undermined the usefulness of dodging, positioning and timing that was supposed to be the fundamental base of GW2 combat.
The only way to heal this game’s pvp as it stands right now is to make risky, position-and-timing-based, power damage king.
I see your point with adding new skills to blocks, but the last thing we need is more cc.
If you are bothered by rampant condis, why the hell would you modify poison volley to that extent? Do you realize that you are adding a crapton more condi application?
Again, reapers mark would never trigger if it had an obvious skill activation plus a long cast time. Teamplay you say? What about 1v1s? What about classes at range that can shoot rupts out their kitten like mesmer and thief while having the most evasive type skills? I would love to see a video of you using this new reapers mark in a team (think pug) environment against a decent opponent.
“Working with teammates to distract foes” sounds fine but most of us are not distracted easily. The added after cast delay is watering the game down for newbies to the extent of stale gameplay.
“Invulnerability and blocking would quickly run rampant”. What? With the cd’s they have now?
Stability. I dont want a bigger gap in the way skills behave in pvp vs wvw, that would only give me cause to play one or the other more exclusively. You should factor into account while some pvp skills behave differently, not all of them do and if stability was reworked it would kitten wvw up. I think warriors have a ridiculous amount of stability, that is something that definitely has to be looked at. Sure it can be removed, but most classes dont have that ability. I put up a post in wvw subsection arguing for mantra of concentration and rock solid to get a radius buff. Maybe if warriors got a slight decrease in the amount of stability they have on demand then buffing the radius of these two skills makes sense. Makes teamplay more necessary.
I think this game needs diversity. Dont nerf condition builds into the ground, but make them on par. On power necro I have no chance against a condi warrior or pu mesmer and that tics me off.
Team Deathmatch for PvP – Raise the AoE cap for WvW – More unique events for PvE
(edited by Stand The Wall.6987)
CONDITION DAMAGE SHOULD BE SUPPLEMENT TO POWER DAMAGE
So? GW1 had tons of lame Teambuilds as well – it was part of the game.
If there’s no possibility of making insane Lamerbuilds like NecroSpike, IWAY, Rangespike and stuff like that, I think theres something missing. Yes; we all hated those builds in GW1 and being a Player that always wanted to win “the right way”, I’ve almost pulled out my hair a couple of times cuz of those builds; but it made the Meta interesting and forced ppl to be creative and come up with new strategies etc.
- In GW1, degen alone wasn’t necessarily a viable way to kill an opponent most of the time (either via hexes, conditions or a combination of the two).
- In GW1, there weren’t instant-activation passive procs everywhere. Players could actually see everything happening and triggering.
- In GW1, we had the “holy trinity” to deal with gimmicky spike team compositions like R-spike or even condition spam. IWAY and SWAY were nerfed. Necroway was sort of bandaid-nerfed with that weird update to protection prayers (although, that took ages). The reason R-spike stayed around for so long was because it was more fair than the others. R-spike required line-of-sight, it could be mitigated through protection prayers and blocks, and it also had a distinct cool-down on the spike around which the opposing team could play. There really wasn’t anything anyone could do most of the time against the other three gimmick comps. That’s the trick: in GW1, you actually had to land spells/attacks consistently and in a timely fashion in order to bring down an opponent.
- GW2 doesn’t have the “holy trinity” to deal with skills/skill spam that not only deals damage but that may also render an opponent helpless to either defend or retaliate with damage.
- The current GW2 condition-meta promotes mindless, ranged skill-spam that front-loads conditions onto low-recharge, fast-activating throwaway skills and rewards the condition player for spamming skills and then running around while auto-attacking for the rest of the encounter. Since there’s no one to remove conditions for you and condition players get conditions for free almost instantly and on incredibly short cool-downs, it just burns players out far more effectively than if the condition player just invested into power.
GW2 has made power less effective than condition damage. By doing so, ANet has undermined the usefulness of dodging, positioning and timing that was supposed to be the fundamental base of GW2 combat.
The only way to heal this game’s pvp as it stands right now is to make risky, position-and-timing-based, power damage king.
Conditions in GW2 are not the same as Degen in GW1.
All damage conditions in GW2 are armor ignoring and as such fit the role as the “other” damage type.
Since GW2 does not differentiate an attack as Physical or magical it’s just “damage” they need something to get around toughness/protection/weakness so that plain “damage” doesn’t get walled. The existence of conditions ideally detracts from investment in toughness/protection/weakness in order to get in more Vitality/condition removal/- condition duration.
Like two people attacking a lion instead of one, ideally it cannot defend against two different people. Conditions are a necessity for the health of GW2 given that it makes no other distinction in damage types other than Life steal which is almost non-existent in the grand scheme of GW2.
The great forum duppy.
Conditions in GW2 are not the same as Degen in GW1.
You have missed my point entirely.
Conditions are a necessity for the health of GW2 given that it makes no other distinction in damage types other than Life steal which is almost non-existent in the grand scheme of GW2.
Except that the current GW2 pvp metagame is condition-spam. It’s full of no-risk, low-recharge, no/low-cast-time procs and skills that just gives everybody conditions for free and almost constantly. It turns team-fights into cluttered nonsense and 1v1s into “Who presses the most buttons the fastest?” It’s by far the least healthy thing that you could do for GW2. It takes all of the risk and counter-play out of a pvp encounter.
Power is completely outclassed by Condition Damage at this point in GW2’s life. This is unhealthy because Condition Damage spam pretty much just lets you face-roll across the keyboard and get free damage on somebody. It negates the importance of dodging, blocks or invulnerability frames (not that the latter 2 are really healthy at all for GW2 given the prevalence at which they exist in the game) thus effectively turning combat into:
- 1) I’M GONNA EAT THIS GUY’S ATTACKS.
- 2) I’M GONNA BLOW ALL MY COOL-DOWNS TO GET MY HP BACK.
- 3) I’M GONNA EAT THIS GUY’S ATTACKS.
- 4) I’M GONNA DIE.
Welcome to GW2. Now it’s time to fix it.
I see your point with adding new skills to blocks, but the last thing we need is more cc.
Well, it might actually be better to see more movement-related CC. Knock-downs, stuns and dazes are really tired out.
If you are bothered by rampant condis, why the hell would you modify poison volley to that extent? Do you realize that you are adding a crapton more condi application?
The way that I balanced it would turn the skill into a skill that would require timing and aim with its arcing projectile and the range limiter. Furthermore, the actually poison durations caused by the clouds wouldn’t necessarily be constant. I was actually thinking of lengthening the recharge time as well to 15 seconds.
Again, reapers mark would never trigger if it had an obvious skill activation plus a long cast time. Teamplay you say? What about 1v1s?
I can use a [Meteor Shower] in a 1v1s vs melee opponents, it’s just a risky gambit that I set up before the guy actually gets into melee range. The same could work for a charge-up [Reaper’s Mark] except it would be even more effective since the Necromancer could charge it in his/her free time and trigger it later. If it were on the fly, it’s also possible to set it up with proper positioning and timing so long as your opponent starts out of range.
What about classes at range that can shoot rupts out their kitten like mesmer and thief while having the most evasive type skills? I would love to see a video of you using this new reapers mark in a team (think pug) environment against a decent opponent.
Thieves are broken and Mesmers are literally the dueling class. Fighting them in a 1v1 is always a headache.
“Working with teammates to distract foes” sounds fine but most of us are not distracted easily. The added after cast delay is watering the game down for newbies to the extent of stale gameplay.
It’s making AoE-centric combat fair in a conquest-style pvp mode. It even works outside of points, it just requires more clever positioning and timing.
“Invulnerability and blocking would quickly run rampant”. What? With the cd’s they have now?
I’ve already discussed how power should be the primary way of dealing damage in GW2. Well, it is possible to bring conditions into the limelight so long as high-condition-inflicting skills had longer cool-downs and were as well-cued as something like [Earthshaker] and we had removed the vast majority of traits that inflict conditions by passive proc.
The point is, by balancing the game properly by making shifting the meta into a risk-filled, big-hitter meta based around landing powerful skill shots, invulnerabilities and blocks would be a nuisance in how they would be able to just wave off a lot potential game-shifting attacks. Play a power class and fight a bunker guardian for an experience in it. You have to get through their Aegis, their Shelter, their Focus 5 triple-block, their elite Invulnerability and their Aegis again on top of their blinds and even another block if they’re carrying mace main-hand. It’s nothing but block spam that stagnates combat. They don’t have to position themselves, they aren’t timing anything, they’re just spamming buttons that make them invulnerable until somebody goes away.
Although, this might just be a complaint for the conquest game-mode in general. It’s pretty bad the way GW2 has it set up right now.
Stability. I dont want a bigger gap in the way skills behave in pvp vs wvw,
I never said that the stability change would be split between any game-types.
if stability was reworked it would kitten wvw up.
Good, that mess of a game-mode needs some serious overhaul to make it anything that actually resembles a balanced pvp game-mode that rewards active play.
Sure [stability] can be removed, but most classes dont have that ability.[/quote]
That’s why it should stack in intensity like defiant. CC would actually pose a threat to a stability-user even if that player got a reprieve from a few instances of CC.
(edited by Swagg.9236)
Why is my name quoted in the above post?
The great forum duppy.
Why is my name quoted in the above post?
Whoops. I just ctrl+v so I can keep replying to specific parts of posts. I just goofed and used your name instead of the guy to whom I was actually replying. My bad.
@Swagg.9236
You’ve been touching on the big issue with the thief class, I don’t now if you ever outright said it since I didn’t bother to read through all the 100~ posts but I’ll type it out here anyways.
The class is time starved, in its very design it needs to make each action net the thief allot of value or the thief fails (low health, med armor, typically low healing). Since there are only 5 attacks and Anet wanted lots of mobility/blind/stealth to make up for the classes squishy nature, the attacks ended up being super attacks (teleport+blind+dmg, leap+dmg+stealth, unblockable high dmg, blind+combo field, exc, exc.) or else the thief can’t work, or else the thief can’t net enough value with each action to work.
The thing is, with no CDs that means the class is made up of extremely strong spammable attacks…
The class desperately needed some secondary mechanic on top of initiative, like if all of its attacks where in the form of infiltrator’s strike, they had a chained second ability. The first ability would typically cost little if any initiative and then pop up the second ability for 7-20~ seconds and that ability would cost a fair deal of initiative.
It’d be a psuedo CD system.
You could buy an ability off CD or specific perc (the second ability in the chain) by spending the 3-5~ initiative, or you can wait the CD (7-20 seconds for the chain to reset) and spend little if any initiative. It’d make initiative regen traits a playstyle choice instead of necessity. It’d give TONS of room for depth, and numerous ways to build/play a thief, without requiring cheesy spam.
(edited by garethh.3518)
The class desperately needed some secondary mechanic on top of initiative, like all of its attacks where in the form of infiltrator’s strike, they had a chained second ability. The first ability would typically cost little if any initiative and then pop up the second ability for 7-20~ seconds and that ability would cost a fair deal of initiative.
It’d be a psuedo CD system.You could buy an ability off CD or specific perc (the second ability in the chain) by spending the 3-5~ initiative. It’d make initiative regen traits a playstyle choice instead of necessity for every thief short of hardcore burst ones. It’d give plenty of room for depth and numerous ways to focus on building a thief, without requiring cheesy spam.
That’s actually a pretty clever solution. Honestly, with the effort that it would take to fix the thief in GW2, it would be much easier—and arguably more logical given how the thief just tends to break all of the fundamental rules that govern how GW2 combat should work—to just delete it from the game. Even so, doing something like that could really make the thief into a class that would have a better defined role in combat outside of “HAHA, I’M DOING DAMAGE/OH NO, I’M DEAD.” By just loading up thief weapon sets with chain skills, one could find more clever ways of allowing the thief to contribute to a fight aside from just doing damage while being effectively invulnerable. The thief could gain interesting new skills to influence how a battle develops and as a result could drop its damage level and its invulnerabilities. It would be a far more balanced class.
Except that the current GW2 pvp metagame is condition-spam. It’s full of no-risk, low-recharge, no/low-cast-time procs and skills that just gives everybody conditions for free and almost constantly. It turns team-fights into cluttered nonsense and 1v1s into “Who presses the most buttons the fastest?” It’s by far the least healthy thing that you could do for GW2. It takes all of the risk and counter-play out of a pvp encounter.
However that’s all application Conditions themself are seemingly fine of their own accord. Anet does have to go through traits/sigils/runes/amulets/skills because their is a lot of gap between options and ones that are too strong and not strong enough.
Power is completely outclassed by Condition Damage at this point in GW2’s life. This is unhealthy because Condition Damage spam pretty much just lets you face-roll across the keyboard and get free damage on somebody. It negates the importance of dodging, blocks or invulnerability frames (not that the latter 2 are really healthy at all for GW2 given the prevalence at which they exist in the game) thus effectively turning combat into:
There is nothing inherit to conditions though that makes it that way. As you can block any attack whether it is 100% power or causes 3 bleeds so long as it’s not of unblockable class. Yes Random procs make knowing when to dodge/block/invuln unpredictable and a game of chance. That is the thing with RNG. After all Sigil of Air/blood/Flame are all power based random damage procs, that no one can predict. Ideally random procs get tuned down a bit.
The great forum duppy.
(edited by ensoriki.5789)
However that’s all application Conditions themself are seemingly fine of their own accord. Anet does have to go through traits/sigils/runes/amulets/skills because their is a lot of gap between options and ones that are too strong and not strong enough.
The way conditions are applied is not fair for how GW2 combat was designed. Because the source of conditions are most often low-recharge, super-short-cast-time, throwaway skills or even auto-attacks combined with low-recharge, instant-activation passive procs on sigils and traits, conditions arguably go completely in the contrary of how GW2 combat was fundamentally designed. GW2 was supposed to be a game of reading your opponent. Conditions don’t give the opponent that option. The opponent simply eats whatever spam isn’t mitigated by the opponent’s dodges/defensive skills, bleeds out and then eats everything again when condition-applying skills, runes, traits and sigils come off (their very short) cool-down. They’re completely counter-intuitive to how GW2 combat should work.
There is nothing inherit to conditions though that makes it that way. As you can block any attack whether it is 100% power or causes 3 bleeds so long as it’s not of unblockable class. Yes Random procs make knowing when to dodge/block/invuln unpredictable and a game of chance. That is the thing with RNG. After all Sigil of Air/blood/Flame are all power based random damage procs, that no one can predict. Ideally random procs get tuned down a bit.
Except effective power skills typically come on a much longer cool-down, have actual animations and punish players for poor use. Condition-centric builds don’t rely on skills that do that. Condition-centric skills rely on throwaway skills that just keep wracking up the conditions for free. The sheer amount of condition-centric throwaway skills completely nullifies what a player should be able to do with dodges or even a few well-timed single blocks.
Yes Random procs make knowing when to dodge/block/invuln unpredictable and a game of chance. That is the thing with RNG. After all Sigil of Air/blood/Flame are all power based random damage procs, that no one can predict. Ideally random procs get tuned down a bit.
Ideally, random, passive, instant-activation procs would be removed from the game. They’re counter-intuitive to the “read and counter-play” design of GW2 combat.
I don’t disagree however I highly doubt procs will ever go away.
It may be because I’m biased against them , so to be optimistic instead I’ll say toning them down and promoting other aspects is feasible and reasonable
Say if Certain on-crits only triggered on auto attack or slot 2’s -3’s. Like Thieves First strikes only randomly giving ini on auto attacks.
The great forum duppy.
(edited by ensoriki.5789)
I don’t disagree however I highly doubt procs will ever go away.
It may be because I’m biased against them , so to be optimistic instead I’ll say toning them down and promoting other aspects is feasible and reasonable
Say if Certain on-crits only triggered on auto attack or slot 2’s -3’s. Like Thieves First strikes only randomly giving ini on auto attacks.
Yes, the only real way to integrate passive, instant-activation procs into the game fairly would be by tying them to specific, well-cued attacks—preferably attacks with cool-downs. For instance, we have the Engineer which is often seen relying on many, many passive procs from traits and sigils. While sigils I could argue need to be re-done entirely, at least with traits we can tie them to specific activated skills.
Things like Shrapnel (Explosives – II) could be reworked into something more like Incendiary Powder and then tied to [Shrapnel Grenade] and [Concussion Bomb] respectively with a shared global cool-down. (now if only there were a way to discern a concussion bomb from any other bomb).
I still dont agree with your after cast and skill delay combo. Dont worry about it.
The guardian block bot sounds annoying, but they wouldnt be doing any damage while using all of those defensive skills so I dont see what the problem is.
Your defiant stacking stability might work but Anet doesnt have the balls to test it out.
The thing I hate most is a kittening condi warrior with banner regen. Its a kitten disgrace.
Team Deathmatch for PvP – Raise the AoE cap for WvW – More unique events for PvE
The guardian block bot sounds annoying, but they wouldnt be doing any damage while using all of those defensive skills so I dont see what the problem is.
I just think that the one-sided nature of those skills is the issue. It’s a very boring design. Even though, it stymies their DPS, invulnerability-spam (even if the long, drawn out chain is on a cool-down) just seems out-of-place for GW2.
Your defiant stacking stability might work but Anet doesnt have the balls to test it out.
A shame. I’ll still push it.
The thing I hate most is a kittening condi warrior with banner regen. Its a kitten disgrace.
Yeah, OK, here’s a question: does the banner itself grant regeneration? Because if it does, that needs to go.
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As a Warrior main I don’t think the Healing Signet suggestion OP is making is particularly OP. HS’s active has a 1.25s cast time, meaning that if you were to spam it on traited cooldown, you’d be doing nothing but casting that extremely obvious and interruptable skill ~7.2% of the time. If you do get interrupted, it goes on a 3s CD wherein you don’t even get the passive healing. I’d say that’s a fair tradeoff for getting 18.75% uptime on preemptive protection. This is on top of how you can just time your burst within the ~14.25s to the warrior’s next use of HS.
Additionally, I feel it is the combination of a lot of small things that make warrior so strong. An easy fix to bring warrior back down to normal levels without making it obsolete would be to implement:
- Combustive Shot now fails to create a Fire Field and thus spend adrenaline if used while blinded.
While this is yet another nerf to a base warrior weapon skill (which I strongly dislike because it affects all builds using said weapon), making Combustive Shot work like that now standardizes every burst skill’s interaction with Cleansing Ire. I.E., it’s now completely counter-played by blind (accessible in spades on Thief and Guard, moderately on Ele and Engi, and rarely on Warrior and Necro).
Also yes, the banner itself grants constant regeneration (the boon) to everyone in it’s radius. Really though, the banner condi regen build is only disgusting because condition damage is disgusting and the game allows you to stack both optimal damage and defense when you go condi.
(edited by Jzaku.9765)
Additionally, I feel it is the combination of a lot of small things that make warrior so strong. An easy fix to bring warrior back down to normal levels without making it obsolete would be to implement:
- Combustive Shot now fails to create a Fire Field and thus spend adrenaline if used while blinded.
While this is yet another nerf to a base warrior weapon skill (which I strongly dislike because it affects all builds using said weapon), making Combustive Shot work like that now standardizes every burst skill’s interaction with Cleansing Ire. I.E., it’s now completely counter-played by blind (accessible in spades on Thief and Guard, moderately on Ele and Engi, and rarely on Warrior and Necro).
I actually just thought that it could be given a post-cast explosion delay that creates the field and that the field could shrink in size considerably. It’s a real shame that nobody ever has to aim that skill. I’m serious when I say that a 120 – 150 – 180 radius with more raw damage and a duration adjustment would be more balanced than it is now.
Also yes, the banner itself grants constant regeneration (the boon) to everyone in it’s radius. Really though, the banner condi regen build is only disgusting because condition damage is disgusting and the game allows you to stack both optimal damage and defense when you go condi.
It is a shame. It really does require 3 stats to make power viable and yet condition damage only needs 1. There’s just almost no way to fix that without completely redoing how conditions deal damage. The most that anyone could do to fix it would be to make condition skills less spammy, reduce the total amount of condition skills in general and make the remaining condition skills deal more conditions and also give them well-cued animations.
Oh boy! Balance Suggestion forum!
“Be concise. Our time is limited and we can’t read walls of text because it will prevent us from having the time to read as many posts as possible. Bullet points or numbered lists are very easy for us to read!”
GOOD LUCK EVER BALANCING THIS GAME, THEN. THERE IS A LOT TO DISCUSS.
I actually just thought that it could be given a post-cast explosion delay that creates the field and that the field could shrink in size considerably. It’s a real shame that nobody ever has to aim that skill. I’m serious when I say that a 120 – 150 – 180 radius with more raw damage and a duration adjustment would be more balanced than it is now.
Sooo then you’d have to
1) Aim the field ahead of time
2) Somehow get the enemy into the effective radius
3) Keep them there for it’s entire duration
to get the best use out of it? As literally the only field Warr has access to, coupled with how anti-utility/toolkit most warrior weapons are, I’d say it’s fine as it is, especially being the profession-mechanic LB burst skill – the one skill on your weapon that you should find amazing. If anything Burning, the condition itself, should be getting looked at for how easy it is to constantly keep up for what is supposedly the burst damage condition.
It is a shame. It really does require 3 stats to make power viable and yet condition damage only needs 1. There’s just almost no way to fix that without completely redoing how conditions deal damage. The most that anyone could do to fix it would be to make condition skills less spammy, reduce the total amount of condition skills in general and make the remaining condition skills deal more conditions and also give them well-cued animations.
I really have no idea how people can think that how we currently deal with conditions is acceptable. It’s gotten to the point where if you don’t have a full condition wipe (from lyssa runes for example), on top of significant low CD cleansing abilities, condition builds are just going to wreck you.
I agree with condition skills being terribly spammy – bring up a list of the best condition applying skills, and they just so happen to be completely effortless to pull off. Terrible offenders are things like Grenade Kit, Necro Marks, and to a lesser degree those ranged autoattacks that very quickly stack up to 4~5+ bleeds on you like Necro scepter auto and Spirit Ranger shortbow auto.
Just curious, have you played all of the classes and are you able to call yourself proficient on each(able to theory craft builds on all of them and carry them out successfully in matches)?
Wipin zergs since 2012
Former Too Kitten [BÆST] leader/founder
[TBT] The Black Tides since ’14
Former Too Kitten [BÆST] leader/founder
[TBT] The Black Tides since ’14