Guild Wars 2

I’d like to sum up here a list of skills that, according to their effects, need a better visual clue in order to be avoided and predicted more easily.

If you think I’ve missed any skill, please answer this topic and I’ll add it.

Warrior
- Skull Crack: his effect is devastating and the animation is pretty much non-existing.

Guardian
- Banish: this skill has a potentially lethal effect, but its animation is pretty hard to read, expecially on Asuras.

Engineer
- Healing Turret: this healing skill is pretty much impossible to properly read and interrupt, considering also how strong its effect is.

Ranger
//

Thief
- Mace Head Crack: similiar to Skull Crack
- Larcenous Strike: it is just the average sword hit. Considering how strong its effect is, I think it needs a better visual clue.

Mesmer
- Moa Morph: this skill is extremely strong and its visual clue is too anonymous to be properly recognized.
- Shatter: their effects are extremely strong, but still there is no clue of them being used, allowing little to no prediction at all (excluding lucky dodge, of course).

Elementalist
//

Necromancer
- Marks: they are too easy to land and really hard to read. I think they need a better visual clue, something like Doom.

sorrow.2364:

Guardian
- Banish: this skill has a potentially lethal effect, but its animation is pretty hard to read, expecially on Asuras.

That may be true on Asuras, but I think the animation is pretty obvious on anything else

Yeah there should be a clear telegraph vs effect with the CC.

The shorter and more of an “interupt” the skill is the faster, if not instant, and the long stuff shouldn’t be shorter than a second, maybe 3/4 second at most.

Also the visual clue for Doom is pointless, the fact that you’re feared after the necro just popped death shroud is clear enough, but it does nothing to help you avoid it.

Personally I think they should just get rid of the 50% fear trait and just rework the current fears so Doom is still instant but short so it’s an interupt, then the other fears will be longer. Or if you want it to be a long fear then it needs some kind of longer telegraph or something.

I’d probably add Fresh Air to Ele since it’s burst w/o ANY telegraph of any kind.

There’s also the aoe/cleanse heal for Rangers that’s super fast like Healing Turret.

Necro Flesh Golem doesn’t really have a good telegraph other than the generic cast animation from the owner that gives no tell that the pet is gonna charge, I think it should just be an instant command like the other necro pets, then have the flesh golem have an obvious charge-up animation like the Shadow Fiend sort of does.

^I don’t even have a necro and I’d be against that. If it had an obvious charge up animation you’d never be able to hit anyone with it. I already can dodge it pretty easily and it’s not like you can’t stunbreak if you do get knocked down. It’s not like necros have a lot of knockdowns anyway. If anything elites in general need to be better, not get nerfed.

sorrow.2364:

Necromancer
- Marks: they are too easy to land and really hard to read. I think they need a better visual clue, something like Doom.

I think you can now see both the fear mark and the other mark motion reasonably well – I would love to see different animations for each mark though so you can tell which one is being used

Most of the skills you suggested seem to be weapon based ones.

Tip: Instead of thinking of all the possible skills a certain class can use when trying to avoid an attack, focus on the weapon they’re holding and the fight’s scenario.

For example, it’s pretty easy to see a big hammer on a guardian’s hand when he swaps weapon, so you know Banish is gonna come at some point, so your best bet is to avoid melee range/attacking from the front and dodge when he gets close/turns to face you. I don’t think Banish is that badly telegraphed though.

You can also anticipate a mesmer’s shatter by the number of illusions up, the fact that these have to run towards you to shatter and, if the player is using a sword, the little Illusionary Leap’s icon below their health bar, since most shatter bursts include a Leap into Frenzy set up.

Hope that helps.

You compare that huge purple aura around mesmer when he’s casting moa with necromancer’s mark animations? That’s… weird, to say the least.

Winds.3087:

You compare that huge purple aura around mesmer when he’s casting moa with necromancer’s mark animations? That’s… weird, to say the least.

His point was that marks don’t have a distinct cast, and can be used right on player. It’s hard to dodge roll out of a mark being cast right on you.

As for moa, it has the same animation as mass invis.

Shalla.3967:

Most of the skills you suggested seem to be weapon based ones.

Tip: Instead of thinking of all the possible skills a certain class can use when trying to avoid an attack, focus on the weapon they’re holding and the fight’s scenario.

For example, it’s pretty easy to see a big hammer on a guardian’s hand when he swaps weapon, so you know Banish is gonna come at some point, so your best bet is to avoid melee range/attacking from the front and dodge when he gets close/turns to face you. I don’t think Banish is that badly telegraphed though.

You can also anticipate a mesmer’s shatter by the number of illusions up, the fact that these have to run towards you to shatter and, if the player is using a sword, the little Illusionary Leap’s icon below their health bar, since most shatter bursts include a Leap into Frenzy set up.

Hope that helps.

It is not that easy to read Banish.
If you compare it to Mighty Blow, which is by far less dangerous, Banish is horribly telegraphed, especially when the Guardian is an asura with tiny arms and tiny hammer.

Mesmer shatter is not easy to anticipate. Most shatter mesmer run sword, which means that clones are running sword too. Clones with sword will run towards you for the whole match, regardless if the mesmer is shattering or not.

Winds.3087:

You compare that huge purple aura around mesmer when he’s casting moa with necromancer’s mark animations? That’s… weird, to say the least.

The purple aura is nothing different from the huge amount of purple animations Mesmer normally has. Then the purple aura is tied to the character model, which means that it is pretty much unreadable on asuras (90% of the PvP population, then).

Oxygen.5918:

As for moa, it has the same animation as mass invis.

Not really.
Mass Invisibility is much much easier to read as you clearly see the mesmer raising his weapon to the sky for a considerable amount of time when casting that skill. Moa, on the other hand, has no evocative movement.

sorrow.2364:

Shalla.3967:

Most of the skills you suggested seem to be weapon based ones.

Tip: Instead of thinking of all the possible skills a certain class can use when trying to avoid an attack, focus on the weapon they’re holding and the fight’s scenario.

For example, it’s pretty easy to see a big hammer on a guardian’s hand when he swaps weapon, so you know Banish is gonna come at some point, so your best bet is to avoid melee range/attacking from the front and dodge when he gets close/turns to face you. I don’t think Banish is that badly telegraphed though.

You can also anticipate a mesmer’s shatter by the number of illusions up, the fact that these have to run towards you to shatter and, if the player is using a sword, the little Illusionary Leap’s icon below their health bar, since most shatter bursts include a Leap into Frenzy set up.

Hope that helps.

It is not that easy to read Banish.
If you compare it to Mighty Blow, which is by far less dangerous, Banish is horribly telegraphed, especially when the Guardian is an asura with tiny arms and tiny hammer.

Mesmer shatter is not easy to anticipate. Most shatter mesmer run sword, which means that clones are running sword too. Clones with sword will run towards you for the whole match, regardless if the mesmer is shattering or not.

We’ll have to agree to disagree then, I find both pretty simple to anticipate/disrupt.

sorrow.2364:

The purple aura is nothing different from the huge amount of purple animations Mesmer normally has. Then the purple aura is tied to the character model, which means that it is pretty much unreadable on asuras (90% of the PvP population, then).

That’s the problem with any asura mesmer’s animations actually apart from blurred frenzy.

…why not just add standardized human-sized models as exclusive pvp option. Huge chunk of your and our problems will vanish the moment instant.