Guild Wars 2

Plain and simple there are far too many of what I like to term “God Boons” in this current meta. Here is a list of what I think are the most powerful boons in order from most powerful to least.

1) Resistance (renders many condi builds useless)
2) Quickness (get almost any rez or stomp or do TONS of damage)
3) Stability (in this CC meta, this boon is GOLDEN)
4) Protection (33% damage reduction normal, 40% damage reduction by tempest)

To many classes can give out far to many of these boons. If you look at your team during a queue you will see EVERYONE with protection, which is anywhere from 33 to 44 percent damage reduction. EVERYONE also is loaded with might, fury, swiftness, in many cases stability, resistance from durability procs across a teamfight, etc.

The main culprits of this are:
Tempests
Revenents
Bunker Mesmers
Scrappers
Druids

Nerf the AOE protection, the on dodge stability, mesmer quickness uptime, druid quickness uptime into the ground please. Oh and nerf durability runes more, get rid of vitality and the onproc buffs.

I personally think the only current god boon is Alacrity: Cannot be ripped, corrupted or even touched while mesmer can basically have it and share it ad vitam aeternam when they have it traited with wells…
Either transform it into a classic boon, or reduce the amount available..

as for your four boons, I’ll respectfully disagree: on certain points:
I’m viewing this in the current meta, which is heavy on bunkers and condis.
The way condis were designed in this game is flawed… the amount of condis that you can stack and damage your opponent vs the amount of ways to clear said condis is just horrendous.
Making them into a main way of dealing damage with the amount currently available is scandalous, especially since they have basically no mitigating factor beside stacking vitality… they may have add Expertise for the duration, but it barely changed anything.
Condis are way too prevalent currently and way too powerful as they are. IMO Resistance, and even Diamond skin to a certain extent, feels justified against the way Anet forced condition damage down our throat without any other way to counter them than limited condition clear…
As for Stability… the way CC are currently existing is lousy, appaling and lazy. Most classes have access to tremendous amount of CCs that can lock down an opponent until his death if he doesn’t have access to Stability in important amounts and you can basically just spam them wherever you want without any afterthought beside wondering where your bruises will be after facerolling your keyboard since there is no consequences in spamming them randomly. I’ll agree with the excess of Stability when
a) Amount of CC is GREATLY reduced in amount
b) Players gains immunity after x amount of CC received in an X timed frame window
I don’t believe in DR since it punish skill plays as much as it does faceroll, but still. Stability is the current, and only, solution to this disgusting CC spam I see in each and every fights.

However, yes, quickness is way way too present and way too easily accessible for such an incredible boon, same with Protection, which is way too prevalent.
I don’t know what Anet game is, I first thought, years ago, that they had instated boons in an intelligent way to carefully balance and smooth rough edges in a class, but that they needed to be skillfully played with or they’d be nearly useless.
As it is now, it looks more like a contest where players are trying to stack more boons than their neighbor and it’s appalling.
Even Cele D/D elementalist needed more skills to stack his might than what we currently see.
Right now I can just faceroll my face into my keyboard and gain : perma protection, perma alacrity, close to perma quickness and a very high time of stability.
But again, the way the game is with off the chart damage (2k on a AA, seriously… and ranged to boot… get your kitten together), permanent condi damage that does as much, if not more, damage than power-based skills and CC spam with close to no respite what would you expect?
They used boons not as a way to ease some builds and classes weaknesses, but to ease the current meta gameplay in a way that makes people feel like the current amount of CC, condis, raw power and bunker is acceptable.
Remove half of that resistance and half of that stability and the game becomes unplayable, period.

Pepsi.8907:

I personally think the only current god boon is Alacrity: Cannot be ripped, corrupted or even touched while mesmer can basically have it and share it ad vitam aeternam when they have it traited with wells…
Either transform it into a classic boon, or reduce the amount available..

as for your four boons, I’ll respectfully disagree: on certain points:
I’m viewing this in the current meta, which is heavy on bunkers and condis.
The way condis were designed in this game is flawed… the amount of condis that you can stack and damage your opponent vs the amount of ways to clear said condis is just horrendous.
Making them into a main way of dealing damage with the amount currently available is scandalous, especially since they have basically no mitigating factor beside stacking vitality… they may have add Expertise for the duration, but it barely changed anything.
Condis are way too prevalent currently and way too powerful as they are. IMO Resistance, and even Diamond skin to a certain extent, feels justified against the way Anet forced condition damage down our throat without any other way to counter them than limited condition clear…
As for Stability… the way CC are currently existing is lousy, appaling and lazy. Most classes have access to tremendous amount of CCs that can lock down an opponent until his death if he doesn’t have access to Stability in important amounts and you can basically just spam them wherever you want without any afterthought beside wondering where your bruises will be after facerolling your keyboard since there is no consequences in spamming them randomly. I’ll agree with the excess of Stability when
a) Amount of CC is GREATLY reduced in amount
b) Players gains immunity after x amount of CC received in an X timed frame window
I don’t believe in DR since it punish skill plays as much as it does faceroll, but still. Stability is the current, and only, solution to this disgusting CC spam I see in each and every fights.

However, yes, quickness is way way too present and way too easily accessible for such an incredible boon, same with Protection, which is way too prevalent.
I don’t know what Anet game is, I first thought, years ago, that they had instated boons in an intelligent way to carefully balance and smooth rough edges in a class, but that they needed to be skillfully played with or they’d be nearly useless.
As it is now, it looks more like a contest where players are trying to stack more boons than their neighbor and it’s appalling.
Even Cele D/D elementalist needed more skills to stack his might than what we currently see.
Right now I can just faceroll my face into my keyboard and gain : perma protection, perma alacrity, close to perma quickness and a very high time of stability.
But again, the way the game is with off the chart damage (2k on a AA, seriously… and ranged to boot… get your kitten together), permanent condi damage that does as much, if not more, damage than power-based skills and CC spam with close to no respite what would you expect?
They used boons not as a way to ease some builds and classes weaknesses, but to ease the current meta gameplay in a way that makes people feel like the current amount of CC, condis, raw power and bunker is acceptable.
Remove half of that resistance and half of that stability and the game becomes unplayable, period.

Awesome post IMO, Anet just doesn’t seem to listen.

I agree, well spoken, and excellently made points Pepsi.

A huge problem i have with some professions and boons is how swiftly they can be reapplied. I say that as a necro – guy specializing in corrupting boons.

I corrupt 5 boons on ele via corrupt boon (pat on the back for getting it below 90% hp and past it’s diamond skin) and what reward do i get? I get to see it apply tons of new ones 2s later including the dreaded protection.

Sure i can and do use my signets, but that extends the battle for 5s more or so. Then i’m outta corrupts, while the happy boon spammage continues.

So how about giving the protects longer cooldowns, or making it that corrupting a boon also prevents receiving that boon for a set duration, much like interrupting a skill prevents it’s use for a certain duration?

Pepsi.8907:

I personally think the only current god boon is Alacrity: Cannot be ripped, corrupted or even touched while mesmer can basically have it and share it ad vitam aeternam when they have it traited with wells…
Either transform it into a classic boon, or reduce the amount available..

as for your four boons, I’ll respectfully disagree: on certain points:
I’m viewing this in the current meta, which is heavy on bunkers and condis.
The way condis were designed in this game is flawed… the amount of condis that you can stack and damage your opponent vs the amount of ways to clear said condis is just horrendous.
Making them into a main way of dealing damage with the amount currently available is scandalous, especially since they have basically no mitigating factor beside stacking vitality… they may have add Expertise for the duration, but it barely changed anything.
Condis are way too prevalent currently and way too powerful as they are. IMO Resistance, and even Diamond skin to a certain extent, feels justified against the way Anet forced condition damage down our throat without any other way to counter them than limited condition clear…
As for Stability… the way CC are currently existing is lousy, appaling and lazy. Most classes have access to tremendous amount of CCs that can lock down an opponent until his death if he doesn’t have access to Stability in important amounts and you can basically just spam them wherever you want without any afterthought beside wondering where your bruises will be after facerolling your keyboard since there is no consequences in spamming them randomly. I’ll agree with the excess of Stability when
a) Amount of CC is GREATLY reduced in amount
b) Players gains immunity after x amount of CC received in an X timed frame window
I don’t believe in DR since it punish skill plays as much as it does faceroll, but still. Stability is the current, and only, solution to this disgusting CC spam I see in each and every fights.

However, yes, quickness is way way too present and way too easily accessible for such an incredible boon, same with Protection, which is way too prevalent.
I don’t know what Anet game is, I first thought, years ago, that they had instated boons in an intelligent way to carefully balance and smooth rough edges in a class, but that they needed to be skillfully played with or they’d be nearly useless.
As it is now, it looks more like a contest where players are trying to stack more boons than their neighbor and it’s appalling.
Even Cele D/D elementalist needed more skills to stack his might than what we currently see.
Right now I can just faceroll my face into my keyboard and gain : perma protection, perma alacrity, close to perma quickness and a very high time of stability.
But again, the way the game is with off the chart damage (2k on a AA, seriously… and ranged to boot… get your kitten together), permanent condi damage that does as much, if not more, damage than power-based skills and CC spam with close to no respite what would you expect?
They used boons not as a way to ease some builds and classes weaknesses, but to ease the current meta gameplay in a way that makes people feel like the current amount of CC, condis, raw power and bunker is acceptable.
Remove half of that resistance and half of that stability and the game becomes unplayable, period.

Have been saying that for months now, it’s fine to take out diamond skin out , but currently it’s here for a reason and the reason being : excessive condition overload with nothing but extreme condi removal as a definitive solution…not enough

ZeftheWicked.3076:

A huge problem i have with some professions and boons is how swiftly they can be reapplied. I say that as a necro – guy specializing in corrupting boons.

I corrupt 5 boons on ele via corrupt boon (pat on the back for getting it below 90% hp and past it’s diamond skin) and what reward do i get? I get to see it apply tons of new ones 2s later including the dreaded protection.

Sure i can and do use my signets, but that extends the battle for 5s more or so. Then i’m outta corrupts, while the happy boon spammage continues.

So how about giving the protects longer cooldowns, or making it that corrupting a boon also prevents receiving that boon for a set duration, much like interrupting a skill prevents it’s use for a certain duration?

Like reapers applies chill/cripple, there should be a grace period on players to avoid condi overload on them so that winning fights as condi builds becomes more than simple :“keep the target overloaded with condis, spam condis on him non stop”

Actually that is my feedback from battle between my base power necro vs bunker tempest. Not reaper nor condi. Tempest still owned me despite best efforts.

Condi or for that matter power reaper would have even lesser chances in this fight. because in RS the ele can easily kite me with it’s perma swiftness, leaps and teleport. At least in death shroud life blast doesn’t care if he’s within 170 range of me.

Also i guess you do have a point with condies, though i must say as a necro i don’t see that very much, cause while on my condi reaper build i can overload enemies with conditions, it takes a long time. I win these fights because of sustain, not because of burst.

As mesmer main player, I think Alacrity by itself is alright, it’s 3s Alacrity for 1s CD. For Phantasm build, shatter your Phantasms for couple second of Alacrity isn’t even worth. My problem with Alacrity is the trait that gives Alacrity to allies at the end of the well. Redesign All’s Well That End Well, well gives 3s of Slow instead of 2s of Alacrity, and make Well of Recall gives 7s of Alacrity ( PVE purpose)

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Actually that is my feedback from battle between my base power necro vs bunker tempest. Not reaper nor condi. Tempest still owned me despite best efforts.

Condi or for that matter power reaper would have even lesser chances in this fight. because in RS the ele can easily kite me with it’s perma swiftness, leaps and teleport. At least in death shroud life blast doesn’t care if he’s within 170 range of me.

Also i guess you do have a point with condies, though i must say as a necro i don’t see that very much, cause while on my condi reaper build i can overload enemies with conditions, it takes a long time. I win these fights because of sustain, not because of burst.

You were power so assuming that the ele was DS aurashare, you must had no troubles applying chill/fear/cripple and given the fact that ele as most possibly tried to hold the point, he remained there at easy chill/fear range and RS charge range ofc.
If you were unable to deal enough dmg, then your build surely sucked and you were not power because the meta tempest would not be able to recover from condi overload+dmg once DS is broken and viper rev is a testimony of this

The ele meta has no teleport and surely he would not try to use his only leap (dagger earth 3) as the skill needs a target to leap to

So many lies and inconsistencies in your argument…no wonder here you find no gameplay footage taken from PvP….it’d be too easy to verify the skill level of those involved and thus debunk 90%+ of QQ threads

And who said i run meta power necro or that ele run aurashare tempest?

ZeftheWicked.3076:

A huge problem i have with some professions and boons is how swiftly they can be reapplied. I say that as a necro – guy specializing in corrupting boons.

I corrupt 5 boons on ele via corrupt boon (pat on the back for getting it below 90% hp and past it’s diamond skin) and what reward do i get? I get to see it apply tons of new ones 2s later including the dreaded protection.

Sure i can and do use my signets, but that extends the battle for 5s more or so. Then i’m outta corrupts, while the happy boon spammage continues.

So how about giving the protects longer cooldowns, or making it that corrupting a boon also prevents receiving that boon for a set duration, much like interrupting a skill prevents it’s use for a certain duration?

That’s, actually, a sound suggestion. As it is now, I’m laughing in the face of any necro corrupting my boons since I’m just shrugging the condis off and applying my boons again in an even greater number. Integrating a small window of a few second (1 – 3) where the player see himself prevented from any boon application, either from himself or allies, would considerably lessen the spam and feeling of forever having boons that can be reapplied constantly and would leave more room for this sort of mechanism to be worthwhile.

As mesmer main player, I think Alacrity by itself is alright, it’s 3s Alacrity for 1s CD. For Phantasm build, shatter your Phantasms for couple second of Alacrity isn’t even worth. My problem with Alacrity is the trait that gives Alacrity to allies at the end of the well. Redesign All’s Well That End Well, well gives 3s of Slow instead of 2s of Alacrity, and make Well of Recall gives 7s of Alacrity ( PVE purpose)

Also agree with that! Alacrity on shatter is fine as it is. However if you coupled it with wells and CS, I can easily top perma Alacrity.
Just well of recall can net me, with continuum shift, 14 second of alacrity. I can often also use my well of eternity twice since the window of CS makes me capable of spawning two wells… that’s two other seconds. Add to that if I spam my shatters… welp you see the deal.
I’d still see Alacrity becoming a boon that can be ripped or corrupted, would add more of a counter play to something that almost seems like a passive with no ICD.
What’s for sure, duration on well (either from Improved Alacrity or All’s Well That Ends Well) needs rework and a shaving.
Mesmer being the only one to give Alacrity is fine, but in such amount is just ludicrous to see.

However Anet did bring an interesting idea with Alacrity and mesmers being the only class being capable of applying it.
Maybe they could rework classes in a way that they all have a boon that cannot be accessed other than a certain class applying it.
Quickness – Thief
Protection – Ele
Resistance – Necro
Alacrity – Mesmer
Aegis – Guardian
Fury – Warrior
Regeneration – Ranger
Vigor – Revenant
Retaliation – Engineer

With some boons (might, stability, swiftness) that can be applied by each class, either individually through a certain skill or to the whole group with fields…
That’s another thing… where the hell are the fields play? The nice, smart play I could see months ago before a fight where people would stack? The amount of boons that can be shared is such that you just see people stacking fields in fight, mindlessly spamming their skills and proccing once or twice boons and such…

Truly feel like they are dumbing down the game to make passive and instant wide AOE skills spam carry people…

Pepsi.8907:

I personally think the only current god boon is Alacrity: Cannot be ripped, corrupted or even touched while mesmer can basically have it and share it ad vitam aeternam when they have it traited with wells…
Either transform it into a classic boon, or reduce the amount available..

Alacrity becoming a standard boon would largely be a buff for it as it would then get boon duration boosts and most importantly:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Inspiration
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Illusionary_Inspiration

Which are huge bonuses compared to the rng chance of it getting removed by 1 of the few builds that can remove boons.

So to summarize…my op boons are ok…
Nerf boons I have no access…
Diamond skin is ok as I need it.
Sincerly yours
Ele

PS: nerf mesmer … they provide boons I cannot give

ArthurDent.9538:

Pepsi.8907:

I personally think the only current god boon is Alacrity: Cannot be ripped, corrupted or even touched while mesmer can basically have it and share it ad vitam aeternam when they have it traited with wells…
Either transform it into a classic boon, or reduce the amount available..

Alacrity becoming a standard boon would largely be a buff for it as it would then get boon duration boosts and most importantly:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Inspiration
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Illusionary_Inspiration

Which are huge bonuses compared to the rng chance of it getting removed by 1 of the few builds that can remove boons.

I hadn’t thought about this :/, but those are valid points to take into account… We definitely need something, however… I truly feel like alacrity is too strong for the absence of counters :/

@Kicat
Not sure what you’re trying to do, diamond skin is not that problematic if you take just enough power to shave that 2k… it’s that trait coupled with the incredible sustain and damage reduction that pose problems… The thing is that people only see DS and not what’s working behind… As for op boons, every class currently has a boon stack problems, not just ele…
Your try at sarcasm was almost funny… Almost but then I forgot to laugh.

Pepsi.8907:

ArthurDent.9538:

Pepsi.8907:

I personally think the only current god boon is Alacrity: Cannot be ripped, corrupted or even touched while mesmer can basically have it and share it ad vitam aeternam when they have it traited with wells…
Either transform it into a classic boon, or reduce the amount available..

Alacrity becoming a standard boon would largely be a buff for it as it would then get boon duration boosts and most importantly:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Inspiration
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Illusionary_Inspiration

Which are huge bonuses compared to the rng chance of it getting removed by 1 of the few builds that can remove boons.

I hadn’t thought about this :/, but those are valid points to take into account… We definitely need something, however… I truly feel like alacrity is too strong for the absence of counters :/

@Kicat
Not sure what you’re trying to do, diamond skin is not that problematic if you take just enough power to shave that 2k… it’s that trait coupled with the incredible sustain and damage reduction that pose problems… The thing is that people only see DS and not what’s working behind… As for op boons, every class currently has a boon stack problems, not just ele…
Your try at sarcasm was almost funny… Almost but then I forgot to laugh.

And the other problem is that people stop looking at the sustain and don’t look behind it, the reason why it exists in the first place

If you think about it…that sustain is what justify the absurd dmg on all other classes, with that sustain gone…the dmg we see in GW2 from burst spec ill be toned down by well over 70%

I mean without that sustain we can’t have skills like Izerker or Unrelenting assault that can deal over 8k dmg on their own, take protection out..and that’s how dmg you receive from burst specs using a single skill…ofc you won’t survive the whole rotation

Supreme.3164:

Pepsi.8907:

ArthurDent.9538:

Pepsi.8907:

I personally think the only current god boon is Alacrity: Cannot be ripped, corrupted or even touched while mesmer can basically have it and share it ad vitam aeternam when they have it traited with wells…
Either transform it into a classic boon, or reduce the amount available..

Alacrity becoming a standard boon would largely be a buff for it as it would then get boon duration boosts and most importantly:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Inspiration
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Illusionary_Inspiration

Which are huge bonuses compared to the rng chance of it getting removed by 1 of the few builds that can remove boons.

I hadn’t thought about this :/, but those are valid points to take into account… We definitely need something, however… I truly feel like alacrity is too strong for the absence of counters :/

@Kicat
Not sure what you’re trying to do, diamond skin is not that problematic if you take just enough power to shave that 2k… it’s that trait coupled with the incredible sustain and damage reduction that pose problems… The thing is that people only see DS and not what’s working behind… As for op boons, every class currently has a boon stack problems, not just ele…
Your try at sarcasm was almost funny… Almost but then I forgot to laugh.

And the other problem is that people stop looking at the sustain and don’t look behind it, the reason why it exists in the first place

If you think about it…that sustain is what justify the absurd dmg on all other classes, with that sustain gone…the dmg we see in GW2 from burst spec ill be toned down by well over 70%

I mean without that sustain we can’t have skills like Izerker or Unrelenting assault that can deal over 8k dmg on their own, take protection out..and that’s how dmg you receive from burst specs using a single skill…ofc you won’t survive the whole rotation

But then again, that damage is an answer to sustain… Both of these influence the other in a never-ending circle if we take anet word. In either a good or bad way. I was simply pointing out that ds itself wasn’t too strong, it’s that trait on top of all the other that makes people cringe and scream, yet they mostly see DS as a problem because it’s the most apparent out of all the other passive making ele so tanky…
But yes I fully agree with what you said.

I would like to say, to everyone going on about alacrity, that it does have counterplay. First, I did not add it to the list simply because it is not technically a “boon” it is a class specific thing that cannot be stripped, similar to how Necromancer can have vampiric presence or guardian can have strength in numbers.

Second, considering no outside force can actually strip alacrity the best thing to do would be to nullify it, and chill does just that. If you see many memsers on the opposing team (and hopefully few tempests) just run some wanderers reaper builds and spread that chill like a pimp with aids.

Resistance is a great boon because it is both a proactive and reactive means of dealing with condis. The only problem comes in when you have to much of it, or for to long of a duration. Really then, it’s certain classes that’re the problem, along with boonspam in general. It’s not even boonshare that’s a problem, but any classes ability to just spam boons endlessly.

Quickness, stability, protection? Meh. In and of themselves not a big deal. Again, it’s anything that can be spammed endlessly that’s the true culprit. They nerfed 100% vigor uptime in the past for the same reason.

Supreme.3164:

Have been saying that for months now, it’s fine to take out diamond skin out , but currently it’s here for a reason and the reason being : excessive condition overload with nothing but extreme condi removal as a definitive solution…not enough

Eles have enough condi clear already outside of diamond skin. Of course most eles don’t bother because they have DS, but that’s another matter.

Crinn.7864:

Supreme.3164:

Have been saying that for months now, it’s fine to take out diamond skin out , but currently it’s here for a reason and the reason being : excessive condition overload with nothing but extreme condi removal as a definitive solution…not enough

Eles have enough condi clear already outside of diamond skin. Of course most eles don’t bother because they have DS, but that’s another matter.

Are we talking about the same condi clear that necros want to see nerfed anyway?..oh kk