Guild Wars 2

sorrow.2364:

You can’t compare those trait to automated response. They don’t give immunity to something, they just reduce the effectiveness. If AR only reduced the duration of conditions by, let’s say, 50%, then the comparison stands and you would be right.

The only trait that can be really compared to AR is Defy Pain and the difference is clear.

And you got that explained in the old thread as well, but i’ll repeat it again.
A permanent defy pain below 25% would be too strong, unlike AR. For starters, direct damage is done by almost any skill, unlike damaging conditions. Also, unlike conditions, direct damage is dealt instantly – you still have to deal with the leftover conditions with AR. Toughness would be useless, so people would simply not get it and get vitality as a defensive stat instead.
Then you just have to worry about conditions while you’re mauling your enemy…and you’ve got a stance who does exactly that. Or shouts with the related runes that can remove conditions. Or cleansing ire, and you just have to fight to remove them. You could also use the healing signet to ignore part of them. And once the enemy has used up his conditions attacks, he’s probably screwed – cause the autoattacks don’t deal good damaging conditions usually, they’re mostly direct damage-based.

sorrow.2364:

You are still failing to see that what I’m pointing to be as a flaw to the trait is the permanent 100% immunity to something.

You’re still failing to see how it is balanced along with the drawback of staying alive below that threshold – cause that’s the only use one can do of that trait.

Still, Necromancer are in a worse position compared to Engineer. No mobility, no evades, no blocks, no vigor at all, no reliable access to stability, no stealth at all, light armor… and they are even considered as master of conditions by design, so AR makes more sense on Necromancers than on engineers.

And a second hp bar along with high hp. And minions that can deal with the enemy while you stay far enough. Also, fear when they come near.
But anyway, it all comes up to design choices.

About thieves, it is only that trait that removes conditions. Just one trait that removes max 2 conditions if you sit in stealth for 4s. I think they can use an AR-like trait better, uh?

They would, if they hadn’t got all those evades to avoid direct damage below that threshold and the capabilities to reset the fight as will.

You argument is laughable, really.

I could say the same.

You have a second chance. If there wasn’t AR, you would be dead against the condition spec you’re facing. The AR version I’ve suggested gives you the time to heal back and cleanse conditions to be back again in the fight and to not make the same errors you made that almost killed you.

Not abusable, better working as a second-chance trait.
Why are you so in denial of a non-abusable but better version of the trait?

Cause there is no abusing to start with. And your modification would be exploited by any enemy smart enough, instead, rendering the whole trait useless. Also, grandmaster traits should be build-defining ones, not just “second chances”. And AR adhere to that description quite well, seeing as you’ve got to build specifically for it to use it decently.

And despite all your whinings, i still don’t see these armies of AR engineers roaming around, unlike full condi necromancers. That means, people don’t consider it overpowered and something that can faceroll enemies.
Unlike full condi necromancers.

Automated response is literally the only thing keeping this meta from being completely dominated by conditions. Leave it alone.

Manuhell.2759:

cut

How can I explain to you that 100% potentially permanent invulnerability to one of the main sources of damage is completely broken, no matter the drawbacks and the costs?

Your arguments make no sense.
It doesn’t matter that you have to sit at low HP, since the damage of condition class is still low. Being invulnerable completely to conditions at unlimited duration is still an horrible design choice. What’s even worse is that this capability is given to only a profession in the Whole game.

It doesn’t matter how the engineer lack of defenses (according to you, since I have a lot to disagree), 100% permanent invulnerability is still wrong.

It doesn’t matter how popular the trait is compared to condi spam, the trait is still wrong design wise.

Really, you’ve came up with the same arguments which really does not make sense and does not explain why having 100% automatic invulnerability to a core mechanic of the game which some profession completely rely onto to be effective is a good design choice.

It’s pretty much having a trait that prevents your enemy to being affected by any boon when he’s over 75% HP. All of your reasoning apply to this situation too, but that mechanic would be stupid and broken since some profession completely rely on boon and wiping away their main mechanic with no chances of counterplay isn’t good, at all.

There was three videos in the last topic about the matter which clearly showed why that trait is broken.

I don’t know what else do I have to do to prove you that this trait is wrong. We’ve tried with reasoning, video proofs, theorycrafting situations…

I guess we should only wait for the next patch for developers taking a move. Arguing in the forums with profession-biased players about balance has Always been an horrible choice and a waste of time.

Celeras.4980:

Automated response is literally the only thing keeping this meta from being completely dominated by conditions. Leave it alone.

I don’t think so. But there’s a proper way to balance conditions and an improper way. This is definitely the latter because it has no interesting counterplay involved. It just makes someone immune.

As long as warrior’s Defy Pain is changed to…

Defy Pain
Non-Condition Damage taken is reduced by 100% when health is below 25%.

It only lasts 4 seconds at the moment, however I think it should last forever like Automated Response.

sorrow.2364:

Your arguments make no sense.
It doesn’t matter that you have to sit at low HP, since the damage of condition class is still low. Being invulnerable completely to conditions at unlimited duration is still an horrible design choice. What’s even worse is that this capability is given to only a profession in the Whole game.

What so engineers cannot have niches that only they can do? We don’t make clones, we dont fear, we don’t have max hp/armor, we dont spam stealth and we run around with only average base hp and armor. But considering you are mad because only we got that trait, I smell jealousy more than anything.

sorrow.2364:

There was three videos in the last topic about the matter which clearly showed why that trait is broken.

No they did not “clearly” show why it was broken. We did point out everything wrong in those videos. Plus we did show our own vid showing someone downing with ar on.

The argument doesn’t really matter because it’s blatantly bugged. Bugs should be fixed.

Lopez.7369:

The argument doesn’t really matter because it’s blatantly bugged. Bugs should be fixed.

Its not bugged. Lol. Its just powerful.

It’s been explained in this thread a few times how it’s bugged. Condition duration is supposed to surpass it, but it currently doesn’t.

Lopez.7369:

It’s been explained in this thread a few times how it’s bugged. Condition duration is supposed to surpass it, but it currently doesn’t.

except condition duration cannot go past 100% and AR reduces it by 100% so any applied conditoins are at -100% to start and if they are modified then it still won’t get through because it is still -60% 70% etc. Just not gonna happen. go find something else to whine about and youre a necro. King of the arena right now enjoy it while it lasts.

That’s not how the game’s mechanics work. Look at how other condition duration reducing traits work, like Dogged March. It subtracts 33 percent from chill, which is overcome by 40 percent condition duration. The end result: Chill lasts 107 percent duration. (Under your explanation, chill would bizarrely last 7 percent duration, which obviously makes no sense.)

In other words, if someone has a trait that subtracts 100 percent condition duration, and I have 40 percent condition duration, my conditions should last 40 percent duration.

Your explanation is also not really how basic percents work, but that’s elementary school math that I don’t want to go into.

Except for as the game states you cannot go past 100% duration. Hence all base condis are 0% if you have 40% Condi duration on a dogged March warr it will only tick for 7% not 107%. But ur 40% duration brings it back into the positive end. And your whole gripe with this skill was never the duration it was that certain “cc” skills no longer work and that’s because they are still condis not cc

Also look at the stat for Condi duration. It starts at 0 therefore you can’t argue that 40% should our tick -100%

You’re mixing up two different mechanics. The stat “condition duration” is useless after 100 percent — barring condition duration reduction effects — but your conditions can last up to 200 percent duration, meaning their base duration is 100 percent.

My explanation for Dogged Match should have made that pretty clear. If you don’t get it after reading that, I don’t think any explanation will make it sink in.

I think the most troubling thing is you seem to genuinely not understand how percents work. I’m not sure how I can help you if that’s the case.

Anyway, it’s obviously bugged to anyone who does understand basic percents and game mechanics, and it needs to be fixed.

Lopez.7369:

You’re mixing up two different mechanics. The stat “condition duration” is useless after 100 percent — barring condition duration reduction effects — but your conditions can last up to 200 percent duration, meaning their base duration is 100 percent.

My explanation for Dogged Match should have made that pretty clear. If you don’t get it after reading that, I don’t think any explanation will make it sink in.

I think the most troubling thing is you seem to genuinely not understand how percents work. I’m not sure how I can help you if that’s the case.

Anyway, it’s obviously bugged to anyone who does understand basic percents and game mechanics, and it needs to be fixed.

Or the tooltip for the trait is just written horribly and by 100% condi reduction just means all of it. U can add condi duration to ur base duration, but the trait will see it it as 100 eighter way and negate it. Awkwardly written tooltips are not hard to find in this game..

Or it could simply mean 100% from the moment its applied ;p isnt that how berserker’s stance works too lol dude, i think you’re more confused than anyone else here

ArenaNet has explicitly said in patch notes and other posts that abilities like Berserker Stance and Automated Response are supposed to be bypassed by condition duration.

Lopez.7369:

ArenaNet has explicitly said in patch notes and other posts that abilities like Berserker Stand and Automated Response are supposed to be bypassed by condition duration.

And how many correctly written tooltips are there in this game? Seriously if these got bypassed by a simple 10% condition duration when one is a grandmaster trait in an other wise horrible line for attack except for one other trait. And the other is on an obscenely long cooldown. Do you think they would be taken? Getting a condition duration is not as much of an investment as a grandmaster trait. Or a skill slot that still leaves you wide open to direct damage and is on a long cooldown.

How do you logically justify the amount of goalpost shifting you’ve done? You’re supposed to reach a belief after thinking up a justification, not declare a belief then form a justification.

Justification For AR performing the way it does:
Engis have limited access to condition clearing compared to almost all others except mesmers and maybe warriors.
Engineers have limited access to boons like protection to help mitigate direct damage.
AR has a very strict requirement to its performance, (25% health= about 4300 HP)

If engis get an condi clear on toolbet use, condi clear with weapons, condition clear that is stunbreak, condition transfer, on demand protection, better in combat mobility. Then we can remove AR completely. Right now engis have almost no other reliable ways to clear conditions and a total of 3 traits that deal with condition clear:
Transmute 8% lolol good joke for a minor master trait.
Cleaning formula 409. Only good for HGH and HGH gets wrecked by most meta builds hence why its not taken.
Automated Response: Made for very specfic builds only and few engis still yet take them. The ones that do are trying to be hard to kill but are only hard for condition builds.

Belief: The condition meta is still completely out of hand and a team with a shout guardian still has an almost impossible time to deal with a team that stacks nothing but condi spammers.
This trait is one of the few things that is keeping full condi teams from steam rolling everyone and their mother.
There is no diversity in the meta going glass is heavily punished and there is no reward for it.

Engineers are supposed to have less access to condition cleansing and mobility than other classes. It’s a few class weaknesses. That justification reads a lot like you’re trying to remove a class weakness, which is a bad design choice.

The condition meta is a problem, but there are good and bad ways to fix it. Adding a hard counter without counterplay is not the right choice.

Either way, AR is simply bugged, so it needs to be fixed.

Lopez.7369:

Engineers are supposed to have less access to condition cleansing and mobility than other classes. It’s a few class weaknesses. That justification reads a lot like you’re trying to remove a class weakness, which is a bad design choice.

The condition meta is a problem, but there are good and bad ways to fix it. Adding a hard counter without counterplay is not the right choice.

Either way, AR is simply bugged, so it needs to be fixed.

And our defenses other wise are what? We have good healing but that is with a heavy investment as well and healing is completely negated by…… conditions….
And what you are really saying about the hard counter is “Conditions are a problem and the only halfway decent way to deal with them in a class that has no other real counter to conditions is to completely nerf it to uselessness”
And no it is not bugged you just want it to work how YOU say it should instead of how it is. Obviously since the devs didnt respond to the last AR whine thread this trait is likely working as intended (devs usually respond to threads that are talking about “game breaking” bugs) kind of like how when thief hidden killer trait was broken after a patch, or mesmers clones having no weapons in wvw. These were all after patches and anet quickly responded to them. AR has been behaving like this since day 1 and there have been a few qq threads stating its completely bugged and broken. These threads are usually started by necro whiners when their condi spam is countered by something halfway decent.

TLDR: There is no bug in this trait otherwise it would have been acknowledged long ago by the devs. Stop running a stupid condi spam build and learn how to time your skills.

The Death Shroud bug took almost one year to fix, and it was never acknowledged by a developer. There have been various other bugs since launch that have gone unfixed. Even poison didn’t work for more than a month.

Pretty bad reasoning — and yet another goalpost shift — on your part.

Lopez.7369:

The Death Shroud bug took almost one year to fix, and it was never acknowledged by a developer. There have been various other bugs since launch that have gone unfixed. Even poison didn’t work for more than a month.

Pretty bad reasoning — and yet another goalpost shift — on your part.

Because you keep coming out with irrationalities and doing nothing but screaming for completely unjustified nerfs. Have you not noticed that this trait was never noticed by anyone (including necros) until the june 25th patch. Then necros were like “ERMAHGERD I CAN STEAMROLL EVERYONE NOW!” Then suddenly they come across an engi with this “WHY CAN I NO KILL HIM!?” OP PLEASE NERF!. That is pretty much what this has come down too. No other condi build had problems before because team comps were fairly balanced with one or two condi classes one or two bunkers and one or two bursters. Now it is 3-4 condi classes one bursty roamer and one bunker. Do you not see how that is a problem now?

I’ve actually always felt that there’s too much condition cleansing, immunity and application in this game. It’s one of the things that drives spam.

This trait was always bugged and bad design, though. It’s just enough engineers are using it now for it to be a serious problem.

Lopez.7369:

I’ve actually always felt that there’s too much condition cleansing, immunity and application in this game. It’s one of the things that drives spam.

This trait was always bugged and bad design, though. It’s just enough engineers are using it now for it to be a serious problem.

They responded to the condi spam meta. Doesn’t make anything OP or bugged. Just means you are sad that a class poses a challenge to necros godhood in a 1v1 or a guardians effectiveness as a bunker.

I’ve repeatedly said in this thread that conditions need to be nerfed. But the right way to do that would keep counter play. Nerfing or reworking Dhuumfire and spirits are just two examples of how the metagame could be addressed in a sensible manner.

Ignoring and keeping a bug isn’t the right solution.

Lopez.7369:

I’ve repeatedly said in this thread that conditions need to be nerfed. But the right way to do that would keep counterplay. Nerfing or reworking Dhuumfire and spirits are just two examples of how the meta game could be addressed in that manner.

Ignoring and keeping a bug isn’t the right solution.

This trait=counterplay, It counters kitten OP condition specs but still leaves the engi vulnerable to a SINGLE hit from any one of these classes:
Mesmer Shatter
S/D Ele.
Hammer/Stun lock warrior
Ranger and ranger pet
S/D Thief
HGH engi (25 might stacks is still 25 might stacks)
SD engi.

This trait has counterplay and it only counters ONE specific thing.

I don’t think you know what counter play means. Here’s a good video about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRBcjsOt0_g.

Lopez.7369:

I don’t think you know what counter play means. Here’s a good video about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRBcjsOt0_g.

Way’s AR allows counter play:
Conditions applied before 25% still tick. This means that in the meta engi bunker build (no elixir C zip zilch none) in order for an engi to clear conditions he got before 25% he would have to heal which brings him back to the above 25% mark and once again vulnerable to conditions.
Engis are not immune to direct damage. This means that if you are running a hybrid ohhhh iono rampagers? Then you would still do somewhat respectable damage.
Also I remember someone saying that life blast can still do 1k damage in a rabid build. Engi is at about 4k health when AR kicks in life blasts hits for about 1k in a rabid build would you like a calculator?
Necros can also take a trait that increases damage to targets with less than 50% health. So while you can still spike them with conditions at 50% health you are also doing more direct damage.
Add into this that if it is a condi mancer they are likely taking hemophilia on top of lingering curse. This means that any bleeds applied to the engi before 25% health are still going to be ticking at 25% health.

Another counter: In general AR engis will hit like a wet noodle. What this means is you can stop attacking for about 5s (if it is a 1v1) and the engi will not kill you. Another thing that will happen is they will tick back above 25% health in which case you wait for your cooldowns and work him close to 25% then nuke him and he will likely be unable to do jack since he has blown his heal and has no other condition removal otherwise.

This trait provides a good back and forth for an engi and a condi class. Just because YOU think it isn’t fun doesn’t mean that other players aren’t figuring out how to work with it and actually time their skills.

In short based off your video (which proved my point) engineer automated response provides counterplay and since this is a team based game just because the engi can counter a spec in your team comp that he would other wise be completely useless against (most engis can only clear 2 conditions every 20s) does not mean it has absolutely no counterplay.

That’s not what counter play is. You’re talking about countering with builds.

Lopez.7369:

That’s not what counter play is. You’re talking about countering with builds and whatnot.

I find it incredibly fun when I would kill an AR engi on my condi mesmer before mesmers became complete jokes. It was actually great to see when to time my skills and how to wait to see when he came back above 25%. Seriously you are just bad if you can’t work around this trait. And if it really does get nerfed then give engis the condition clearing capability of ooohhhhh iono necros?

It wouldn’t really be a nerf. It would be a bug fix.

Engineers aren’t supposed to have the condition cleansing capabilities of necromancers, just like necromancers aren’t supposed to have access to as many boons as engineers. Classes are all about unique strengths and weaknesses. The balance is not letting any of those strengths or weaknesses go too far in either direction. (For example, necromancers are supposed to excel at conditions, but they currently do too much damage and have too much coverage.)

Lopez.7369:

It wouldn’t really be a nerf. It would be a bug fix.

Engineers aren’t supposed to have the condition cleansing capabilities of necromancers, just like necromancers aren’t supposed to have access to as many boons as engineers. Classes are all about unique strengths and weaknesses. The balance is not letting any of those strengths or weaknesses go too far in either direction.

Have you seen the amount of boons a bunker engineer has? They are almost non-existent. They only get the hidden flask “elixir B” at 75% health and the random protection from traits and regen which is negligible compared to the heals that they have already. No real access to might no stability. Bunker engineers are the least boon dependant bunkers in the game.

@OP, I am sure you’re right in that it’s “bugged” (honestly I think someone was just lazy or too busy and just chose not to implement it yet) because they explicitly changed the wording of the tooltip from what it used to be, “Become immune to conditions when health is below 25%.” to what it is now “Condition duration is reduced by 100% when health is below 25%.” but it still has the same effect now as it did under the previous description.

To the people that are confused, here is a rewording of Lopez’s argument. Keep in mind, I’m not saying anything about class balance here, just about whether the trait is working as intended according to its wording.

What AR did under the old description: at 25% health and below, new condition applications will always have the word “Immune” pop up above the Engineer. No calculation is done related to the applier’s condition duration, the Engi is just immune to all new conditions that would be applied.

What AR should now do to match the new description: all new conditions should have 100% added to the Engineer’s -condition duration% in the following formula:

(final duration) = 100% + (source’s +condition duration%) – (target’s -condition duration%)

So, for example, let’s say the source is a Necromancer that has +40% condition duration and additionally has +50% fear duration. If that Necro tries to apply a fear with 1s base duration to an Engineer with AR active, it currently does nothing, but if it acted as the AR description says it should, then the resulting duration of the fear using the formula would be:

100% + (50% + 40%) – 100% = 90%

1s * .90 = .9s

So, the Engineer in this example would get feared for 9/10 of a second with AR active (down from 1.9s without AR active) according to the new description, whereas at the moment they don’t get feared at all. Kapeesh?

I didn’t know they changed the wording. Interesting. That seals the argument then.

Yes, it was changed in the June 25th patch to match the wording of the updated Berserker’s Stance.

That makes it a really weird bug. Did they not test either ability at all? How does that slip through when the clear intent was to make it 100 less percent condition duration instead of immunity?

Not sure how much you know about programming, but in big software development projects, there is a main trunk revision (a snapshot of this eventually gets pushed to the live servers after QA testing) and then there are many branch versions created by different developers for adding and testing new features. New stuff is added in branches so that if something gets broken in their branch, it doesn’t affect the trunk revisions (and thus bother other devs that are updating their code from the trunk). Once the new features are tested and deemed “live-worthy”, it gets added back to the trunk in time for the next patch to the live servers.

Maybe what happened is while batching together these completed and tested branches for this latest patch, someone either forgot or wasn’t ready to push the branch containing this change (either because it failed testing, or there wasn’t sufficient time to test). However, the description changes were done in a separate branch (which is likely since the text changes are done by different people than the game engine changes), and thus went live without the related engine change.

I was not familiar with that. Thanks for the explanation.

It’s interesting how problems might seem obvious and simple to most people are really complicated bundles of code and different processes.

Yeah, although explaining one possible reason doesn’t really excuse the fact that this and many similar mistakes have been made in the past and seemingly without an end in sight. I think a good, hard look at their development → QA → live process may be in order since so many of these mistakes slip through the cracks. I know that people I’ve worked with over the years have gotten in serious trouble for mistakes like these happening with regularity (particularly unacceptable when your clients are businesses instead of individual consumers, for instance). I’m not really annoyed, just concerned.

I agree with that. Even if the issues are complicated, fundamental mechanics, like poison, being bugged for long periods of time is completely inexcusable.

Regarding the rewording, it depends on what they were trying to convey to the player.
“Immune below 25% hp” could also have wrongly mistaken as acting on pre-existant conditions, after all. While the new tooltip, knowing that condition duration applies at the conditions’ application, is clearer in that regard – as in, it works only on conditions applied below 25%.
But well, it all depends on what they mean with the trait’s wording.

Manuhell.2759:

Regarding the rewording, it depends on what they were trying to convey to the player.
“Immune below 25% hp” could also have wrongly mistaken as acting on pre-existant conditions, after all. While the new tooltip, knowing that condition duration applies at the conditions’ application, is clearer in that regard – as in, it works only on conditions applied below 25%.
But well, it all depends on what they mean with the trait’s wording.

Well, two points. First point being, if all they wanted to do was to clear up the wording, I would say neither description is particularly accurate. If you wanted to clear the wording up, all you would do is add a single word to the old description. “Become immune to new conditions when health is below 25%.”

The second point is, refer to the developer clarification to Berserker’s Stance that Lopez mentioned earlier, which has the same wording as the new wording of AR.

I have the slight feeling that warrior zerk stance was a fixed AR applied on a timer, but they forgot to update the engie’s AR trait code.

cymerdown.4103:

Well, two points. First point being, if all they wanted to do was to clear up the wording, I would say neither description is particularly accurate. If you wanted to clear the wording up, all you would do is add a single word to the old description. “Become immune to new conditions when health is below 25%.”

Well, it all depends on what they find accurate. I mean, it isn’t like the tooltips in this game are that great after all…

cymerdown.4103:

The second point is, refer to the developer clarification to Berserker’s Stance that Lopez mentioned earlier, which has the same wording as the new wording of AR.

Indeed, but the rewording of AR wasn’t even mentioned in the patch. It was basically a stealth change.

What we really need would be a dev to come and explain how it is supposed to work.

Probably the case of Spaghetti code

Manuhell.2759:

What we really need would be a dev to come and explain how it is supposed to work.

They would have to admit it’s bugged or misinformative in some way, though. They don’t do that very often.

Unless its working as intended but they are letting this thread live on to see the conversation(QQ) of a bad player who can’t deal with AR on their own ? most likely

but if its not working as intended, i would love to read where the devs have said that -100% means base duration and it ignores condi duration. cause as far as the game goes, AR has always been that way

It’s weird how a few people are responding to this thread and making demands about the conversation without actually reading the conversation.