Guild Wars 2

We all know (I hope) that there are builds that counter other builds. If something OP, it means there’s an imbalance some where; something else isn’t as strong to counter it. I’m curious, exactly how many other builds counter Celestial Build: Ele/Engi/War?

As a condi guardian… I’ll tell you right now that Cele Ele builds, or tanky-heavy Might/sustaining builds, will be incredibly easy to beat. Not easier, easy.

Condi Guards already wreck shop in 1v1’s. Our draw back is large amounts of condi cleanses. It’s why we get hard countered ever so easily; people don’t find them viable (I beg to differ) in Tpvp. We should almost always lose against high tier players with 5+ condi cleanses. Same goes for condi rangers. Same goes for condi engis.

With Cele Builds, there isn’t a definite hard counter. Stripping 15+ stacks of Might, or Regen boon, doesn’t come as easy for other classes like Mesmers. The easiest boon strip Guardians have.. with out changing their builds all too much.. is Searing Flames. It kills 1 boon every 10s. Which ever boon gets applied first, that’s what it will strip.

If removing a boon was based on duration, Might will almost always get removed first, followed by Regen, then fury or stability. These are the biggest game changing boons that these type classes utilizes.

TLDR
Instead of nerfing Cele Builds, have the boon strip mechanic target boon duration instead of boon application.

If Might stacking is the problem then you already have the answer. Shaves it.

I’d be cool with them changing the boon strip mechanic.

Searing flames prioritizes might…

Eurantien.4632:

Searing flames prioritizes might…

And the crowd goes wild. This is like those times where everyone’s complaining about matchmaking and Justin comes in and tells them they have blowouts only once every 10 games.

Searing Flames is underwhelming, hardly any Guard will take it over something like Blind Exposure. Might is applied so fast in this meta, that stripping it every ten seconds isn’t going to do much.

Harbinger.8637:

Searing Flames is underwhelming, hardly any Guard will take it over something like Blind Exposure. Might is applied so fast in this meta, that stripping it every ten seconds isn’t going to do much.

If it actually strips might 100% reliably, it’s not underwhelming when you consider how much god mode you’re denying when stripping an Ele or War’s might every 10s so they can never go past 3-6!

This is all in theory based on Eura claiming it prioritizes might.

Chaith.8256:

Harbinger.8637:

Searing Flames is underwhelming, hardly any Guard will take it over something like Blind Exposure. Might is applied so fast in this meta, that stripping it every ten seconds isn’t going to do much.

If it actually strips might 100% reliably, it’s not underwhelming when you consider how much god mode you’re denying when stripping an Ele or War’s might every 10s so they can never go past 3-6!

This is all in theory based on Eura claiming it prioritizes might.

It does prioritizes might and that’s where part of the problem lies. For example, lets say you’re fighting a Guard. That Guard probably has protection or stab, those are boons you want to remove. However, you can’t because chances are that Guard has at least one stack of might, and that’ll get removed instead.

The only way this trait is somewhat decent is if you pair it with nullification. It’s not a good trait and it needs to be redesigned. There’s a reason a majority of the players don’t use it.

Harbinger.8637:

It does prioritizes might and that’s where part of the problem lies.

Well not right now it isn’t. Everyone is screaming all teams are running a bazilion builds that rely on Might stacking, so much that boon stripping needs to be massively buffed and might stacking massively nerfed. And as usual, without checking what builds could actually counter this.
This is how meta works. One thing gets good, then people play something that’s good against that till the meta shifts.

Here you have a trait that pretty much shuts these builds down. Every 10sec their Might goes bye-bye, reliable and fits in a build that is claimed to be solid on its own without replacing a critical trait. A 3 vulnerability on Blind is not a critical trait, your condition guardian barely benefits from it anyway as conditions don’t scale with vulnerability.

Eurantien.4632:

Searing flames prioritizes might…

You know this for a fact and not just speculation? Unless they recently changed it, I think not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTCsj2g9Bbk&feature=youtu.be
In video time: 1:40 is the Guards next proc. Ele grabs Regen right before it happens… His Regen got wiped off and not the Might stack. Rewind the video 1:35 and watch till 1:40.
It’s very evident that Might is not a priority. This is with all “Remove a boon” traits/skills/sigils.

Doesn’t priorits(z)e it. Checked it first time it was mentioned on the forums…

Chaith.8256:

Harbinger.8637:

Searing Flames is underwhelming, hardly any Guard will take it over something like Blind Exposure. Might is applied so fast in this meta, that stripping it every ten seconds isn’t going to do much.

If it actually strips might 100% reliably, it’s not underwhelming when you consider how much god mode you’re denying when stripping an Ele or War’s might every 10s so they can never go past 3-6!

This is all in theory based on Eura claiming it prioritizes might.

it removes might like 70% of the time. I think its actualy a “last applied first removed” trait. But really the problem is that guardians dont even burn people every 10 seconds LOL.

It does indeed appear to be random now, it previously prioritized Might so this was stealth changed as I cant find anything in any of the recent patchnotes about it.
Also worth to note is that Searing Flame wasn’t the only boon removal he was running in the video. Shortly after the episode you describe a proc removes boons while Searing Flames still had to be on cooldown.
And it also seems an old bug is back where Searing Flames goes on cooldown when it burns a target even if the target has no boons at the time.

Additionally it didn’t always remove the most recent boon, it picked older boons at times as well.

It doesn’t prioritize might. Tired of people saying that. It is just like condi cleanse. It cleanses the last applied. Since might is usually a continuous stack, it will cleanse it first (if it was last applied, aka a new stack).

GhOst.4019:

It doesn’t prioritize might. Tired of people saying that. It is just like condi cleanse. It cleanses the last applied. Since might is usually a continuous stack, it will cleanse it first (if it was last applied, aka a new stack).

This is not true, it did not priorize the last applied boon. Abilities have hidden priority lists, f.e. a Thieves trait where he steals 2 boons will always pick Stability first and Protection 2nd. Necro well of Corruption picks Stability last.

Searing Flames did up to prioritize removing Might. This has been removed without mention in the patch notes.

Mmmmm no. Where did you get that from? Reddit? lol. Yes the thief one would be correct (sorry) but all the rest is just what you “think” is correct. Might is stacked last and will be stripped first. You provide me with patch notes that said it prioritizes might (you won’t find it) or a dev that says it does and I will be wrong; but none of that will happen. Might is continuously stacked and therefore a slit second after another boon applied, might is again the last applied boon. It is not prioritized and never was.

Upon reflection, yes you are right that it never prioritized Might. This seems to have been based on a lucky streak of Might cleansing.

But I still contest the idea it takes the last applied Boon out first. In the video at the 00:50 mark and the following 2 seconds, it clearly shows both Protection and Stability popping on the Ele.
However the Searing Flames proc takes out the Might stack, which was on there before either the Protection or the Stability. And did not receive an extra proc in between stability/protection being applied and Searing Flames proccing.

Terrahero.9358:

Upon reflection, yes you are right that it never prioritized Might. This seems to have been based on a lucky streak of Might cleansing.

But I still contest the idea it takes the last applied Boon out first. In the video at the 00:50 mark and the following 2 seconds, it clearly shows both Protection and Stability popping on the Ele.
However the Searing Flames proc takes out the Might stack, which was on there before either the Protection or the Stability. And did not receive an extra proc in between stability/protection being applied and Searing Flames proccing.

@ 00:41 – 43 Searing Flames got rid of Might because Might got applied right away.

@ 00:50 The Ele was in his Fire Fields/Might rotations. Because of his rotations, he could have easily button smashed might along with his other skills.

Because of the active Fire Field under him, I’d have to say Might was still triggered before other boons due to his button smashing.

It’s luck that might gets removed the way it does. It’s never a priority.

It was suggested that SF removes the last applied boon. And this is demonstrated to not be the case due to what happens around 00:51. Prot/Stab are applied and a second later Burning is applied and immediately removes a Boon (so no lag/delay).

The boon removed is the stack of Might. Between prot/stab being applied and might being removed, no new might stacks proc to push might back to being the “most recently applied”.

Unless there is a mechanic where the boon removal cannot decide between protection or stability as they both get applied at the exact same time and as a back-up defaults to the 3th most recent boon. But that would be very weird.

I tested this over a year ago and it did not prioritize might.

Terrahero.9358:

The boon removed is the stack of Might. Between prot/stab being applied and might being removed, no new might stacks proc to push might back to being the “most recently applied”.

Unless there is a mechanic where the boon removal cannot decide between protection or stability as they both get applied at the exact same time and as a back-up defaults to the 3th most recent boon. But that would be very weird.

You’re right he couldn’t have possibly reapplied might. Based on his current rotation Water applied might, then stability and regen immediately proc’d.
That weird mechanic you suggested has to be why. Makes no sense :c

Saiyan.1704:

Terrahero.9358:

The boon removed is the stack of Might. Between prot/stab being applied and might being removed, no new might stacks proc to push might back to being the “most recently applied”.

Unless there is a mechanic where the boon removal cannot decide between protection or stability as they both get applied at the exact same time and as a back-up defaults to the 3th most recent boon. But that would be very weird.

You’re right he couldn’t have possibly reapplied might. Based on his current rotation Water applied might, then stability and regen immediately proc’d.
That weird mechanic you suggested has to be why. Makes no sense :c

This thread has become pretty derailed, but I think it is a valuable discussion. The way condition/boon removal works is a bit all-over-the-place in GW2. And nowhere is it ever explained how each skill, rune or sigil really works.

Which leaves it up to the players themselves to try and figure this stuff out, but we honestly just don’t know how farfetched some of these mechanics might be. For all we know there is indeed a mechanic that skips dual-applied boons, or maybe Stability/Protection are exempt from the LIFO-rule. Based on just that video it’s impossible to tell.
And that doesn’t even include any potential bugs or undocumented changes.

Really would like arenanet to put this stuff in the tooltips, and if its to much text then at least make a nice little forum sticky where it’s explained. It seems like knowing how your abilities work might be important.

Doesn’t prioritize might atm no, can just as well strip retal.

they should change it to be 10 sec CD PER TARGET.

then runes of the guardian would start looking a lot more attractive.

i have tested a settler amulet guard with guardian runes specced to do max amount of blocks proc’ing a double burn each block with increased burn duration and damage.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRAsf5dlsApVoNDxcI8DRR8QZ5I8CVHAJwji1Vc1MA-TJhAwArLDYd/BAnBgOPEAA

i only tested it in duels but in certain 1v1s it was extremely effective. i blocked pretty much everything and proc so much burn there is no amount of cleanse.

now this was for fun and this build isn’t exactly viable because it doesn’t have nearly the group support of other guard builds, but if the trait to remove boon on burn had a CD of 10 sec PER TARGET then we might start finding effective boon removal in the most UNLIKELY of all places: condi guardian.

Booms.2594:

it removes might like 70% of the time. I think its actualy a “last applied first removed” trait. But really the problem is that guardians dont even burn people every 10 seconds LOL.

Actually we apply burns every 5 seconds with just auto attacks. Not counting our 5 burn blocks, excluding shelter, and 5 other activated burn skills.

70% might removal rate becomes 40% in TPvP. Might will never get cleansed with everyone applying mediocre boons to each other. You can’t measure the proc rate… boon ripping is luck of the draw and should be changed.