Guild Wars 2

I was just thinking about how the devs could improve active play within the trait system and a thought popped into my head; Why don’t we have more traits that push us towards using finishers and fields? Then I remembered Persisting flames (and to lesser extent, Cloaked in Shadow) and wonder why we don’t have more of those.

For instance, Rangers could have a trait that removes 3 conditions from them every time they successfully perform a leap finisher in a field which would replace their Empathic Bond making the Ranger more active. Or Engineers could have a trait that causes them to blind and bleed a target when they successfully perform a blast finisher in a field(with a short cooldown of course and it could replace the kinda mediocre Shrapnel).
Or a Warrior could get a trait called “Kicking up dust” which allows them to blind targets around them every time they successfully perform a blast finisher. Or a trait called “Leaping finish” that gives them 10% extra damage every time they successfully perform a leap finisher through a field.

There are definitely quite a few things that could be done with this and the potential just gets me excited at the build possibilities. I think it will definitely kick up build diversity by a TON (given that they are not overpowered) and it would be cool to see traits along these lines replace the underused or under-performing traits.

Tell me what you guys think and share whatever cool ideas you have along these lines.

I like the idea a lot, but it would have to be done very carefully. Finishers already happen every couple of seconds in an average teamfight, and some engineer and ele builds finish their own fields constantly. Replacing passive traits with actives like these would likely be the way to go.

i wanted more combo field for warriors months ago. that would give more play more survibility but anet did not consider

Lighter.5631:

i wanted more combo field for warriors months ago. that would give more play more survibility but anet did not consider

Because warriors get finishers out the kitten . More finishers = less fields, more fields = less finishers, or you get a balance of both.

Bhawb.7408:

Lighter.5631:

i wanted more combo field for warriors months ago. that would give more play more survibility but anet did not consider

Because warriors get finishers out the kitten . More finishers = less fields, more fields = less finishers, or you get a balance of both.

Lets not forget the Cd’s on some finishers…. Warriors earthshaker/guardian mightyblow for instance

If combo’s and finishers were a notable and consistent part of the game… sure…
But right now… they are just a sidenote thrown on a third of the weapons and random abilities…

Like, if there was a utility slot or two dedicated to creating combo fields and finishers for them, then making combo’s a very impacting and played around part of the game would make sense.

I understand what you want but the issue I have is adding so much utility to certain skills. Its the problem necro offhand dagger or thief sword #2 have, skills need to do less things not do more. Doing several things at once helps spam and is part of the spam culture – warriors removing condis and bursting, necros doing large dps and disables.

Sounds like a WvWvW thing to me..I dont want a meta full of fields and blast, leaps etc..They suppose to nerf the aoe not boost em….Go in WvWvW and do your things, this is sPvP and i want to know what is happening..Not to test my PCs performance

garethh.3518:

If combo’s and finishers were a notable and consistent part of the game… sure…
But right now… they are just a sidenote thrown on a third of the weapons and random abilities…

Like, if there was a utility slot or two dedicated to creating combo fields and finishers for them, then making combo’s a very impacting and played around part of the game would make sense.

That’s actually a good thing. People have to actively try to build for it in order to truly take advantage of it. If leaping finish were a real trait I could see Warriors taking Longbow to get 10% more damage from eviscerate with it. I think if they were too available then people wouldn’t need to build for it too consciously, they would just throw it on as an addition rather than a build defining trait.

Coulter.2315:

I understand what you want but the issue I have is adding so much utility to certain skills. Its the problem necro offhand dagger or thief sword #2 have, skills need to do less things not do more. Doing several things at once helps spam and is part of the spam culture – warriors removing condis and bursting, necros doing large dps and disables.

This is not like those weapon’s or traits. In order to make it work you need two skills to get the effect you want, granted you get the original effect from the combo and the field but you still need to successfully pull of two skills to make it work. Considering all the things that could happen in a fight, that could prove difficult. And I think we can all agree that more reward for the difficulty of playing certain builds is needed.

Dardamaniac.1295:

Sounds like a WvWvW thing to me..I dont want a meta full of fields and blast, leaps etc..They suppose to nerf the aoe not boost em….Go in WvWvW and do your things, this is sPvP and i want to know what is happening..Not to test my PCs performance

There are already plenty of AoEs in SPvP and before this condi meta there were way more, your computer should have a lot of war scars.

NevirSayDie.6235:

I like the idea a lot, but it would have to be done very carefully. Finishers already happen every couple of seconds in an average teamfight, and some engineer and ele builds finish their own fields constantly.

Adding internal CDs like 5 seconds or so would be an easy fix if it is deemed OP when spammed.

Combo traits should replace pretty much all of the “on-crit” traits IMO. Traits that proc on finishing a certain type of field a certain way would be a great way to replace the passive traits that make the game too easy mode.

Won’t happen, but I think expanding on the combo system is probably the single best thing that could be done to add strategic depth to combat. /shrug

Dirame.8521:

garethh.3518:

If combo’s and finishers were a notable and consistent part of the game… sure…
But right now… they are just a sidenote thrown on a third of the weapons and random abilities…

Like, if there was a utility slot or two dedicated to creating combo fields and finishers for them, then making combo’s a very impacting and played around part of the game would make sense.

That’s actually a good thing. People have to actively try to build for it in order to truly take advantage of it. If leaping finish were a real trait I could see Warriors taking Longbow to get 10% more damage from eviscerate with it. I think if they were too available then people wouldn’t need to build for it too consciously, they would just throw it on as an addition rather than a build defining trait.

No.
It means on classes like rangers, instead of the passive condi removal, you have to run sword mainhand for condi removal.
That doesn’t help.

If you makes traits, and so speccing, revolve around an extremely niche part of the game (in this case combo fields) you end up just cutting out playable specs.

No, plopping in a combo field/finisher trait slot into classes won’t make the game more balanced.
No one ever expected it to and quite frankly 10% more dmg isn’t all that unbalanced…
But anyways, any change would involve rebalancing.

Ideally, combo fields would effect dmg and dmg mitigation much more than 10%, they should make spikes (a good spike involves getting a few combo’s off before the hard hitting attacks) and buffs to consistent dmg, or dmg mitigation (like apply a 1-2s duration stronger version of weakness). That creates play and counterplay all based off of positioning, something GW2 could seriously use.

Anyways its all black script on a chalkboard, Anet can’t change gameplay to help GW2.

garethh.3518:

Dirame.8521:

garethh.3518:

If combo’s and finishers were a notable and consistent part of the game… sure…
But right now… they are just a sidenote thrown on a third of the weapons and random abilities…

Like, if there was a utility slot or two dedicated to creating combo fields and finishers for them, then making combo’s a very impacting and played around part of the game would make sense.

That’s actually a good thing. People have to actively try to build for it in order to truly take advantage of it. If leaping finish were a real trait I could see Warriors taking Longbow to get 10% more damage from eviscerate with it. I think if they were too available then people wouldn’t need to build for it too consciously, they would just throw it on as an addition rather than a build defining trait.

No.
It means on classes like rangers, instead of the passive condi removal, you have to run sword mainhand for condi removal.
That doesn’t help.

If you makes specs revolve around an extremely niche part of the game you end up just cutting out playable specs.

No, plopping in more combo fields and finshers won’t make the game more balanced.
No one ever expected it to and quite frankly 10% more dmg isn’t all that unbalanced…

Ideally combo fields would effect dmg and dmg mitigation much more than 10%, they should make spikes and buff consistent dmg, or dmg mitigation (like apply a 1-2s duration stronger version of weakness). That creates play and counterplay all based off of positioning, something GW2 could seriously use.

Anyways its all black text on a chalkboard, Anet can’t change gameplay to help GW2.

Well what you proven with that initial statement is that my idea for the Ranger trait was probably a bad one. You didn’t necessarily prove that the amount of finishers and fields needs to be upped because to be honest, if Anet upped field amounts we’d all throw a fit about screen clutter again.

In my mind, there are already quite a few fields and finishers within the game already. You cannot go into a team fight without seeing at least one and that’s saying something. All the game needs now is more reasons to consciously take advantage of them.

The rest of your post I don’t quite understand because I never mentioned anything about balance in relation to combo field amount and you didn’t either.

Dirame.8521:

garethh.3518:

Dirame.8521:

garethh.3518:

If combo’s and finishers were a notable and consistent part of the game… sure…
But right now… they are just a sidenote thrown on a third of the weapons and random abilities…

Like, if there was a utility slot or two dedicated to creating combo fields and finishers for them, then making combo’s a very impacting and played around part of the game would make sense.

That’s actually a good thing. People have to actively try to build for it in order to truly take advantage of it. If leaping finish were a real trait I could see Warriors taking Longbow to get 10% more damage from eviscerate with it. I think if they were too available then people wouldn’t need to build for it too consciously, they would just throw it on as an addition rather than a build defining trait.

No.
It means on classes like rangers, instead of the passive condi removal, you have to run sword mainhand for condi removal.
That doesn’t help.

If you makes specs revolve around an extremely niche part of the game you end up just cutting out playable specs.

No, plopping in more combo fields and finshers won’t make the game more balanced.
No one ever expected it to and quite frankly 10% more dmg isn’t all that unbalanced…

Ideally combo fields would effect dmg and dmg mitigation much more than 10%, they should make spikes and buff consistent dmg, or dmg mitigation (like apply a 1-2s duration stronger version of weakness). That creates play and counterplay all based off of positioning, something GW2 could seriously use.

Anyways its all black text on a chalkboard, Anet can’t change gameplay to help GW2.

Well what you proven with that initial statement is that my idea for the Ranger trait was probably a bad one. You didn’t necessarily prove that the amount of finishers and fields needs to be upped because to be honest, if Anet upped field amounts we’d all throw a fit about screen clutter again.

In my mind, there are already quite a few fields and finishers within the game already. You cannot go into a team fight without seeing at least one and that’s saying something. All the game needs now is more reasons to consciously take advantage of them.

The rest of your post I don’t quite understand because I never mentioned anything about balance in relation to combo field amount and you didn’t either.

Anet cluttered the game through terrible particle effects, small BO sizes and tons of AI and azuras.

Because Anet can’t fix any of that, yeah this isn’t a viable option, but so isn’t next to anything related to that…. because Anet can’t fix any of that…

Anyways, so it’s off to the land of ‘only ifs’…

If Anet could fix particle effects, toss asuras, make most objectives bigger, and toss the cluttery AIs…. giving each spec a combo field that has a high impact on gameplay doesn’t clutter the battlefield.

If anything, having points of focus and contention, these new and improved combo fields, would actually clear up the battle and scheme of fighting, it’d make the goal of actions more obvious.

What I was saying would, in practice off the top of my head, be something like turning combo fields into a near only 1~ utility slot thing, 8~ second duration combo fields on 40-80 sec CDs. They’d be the main source of fury and might, fury would be a short duration stacking spike intensive boon (buffs crit/crit dmg allot) along with weakness (lowers crit dmg notably for 1-2s, 4s cap duration on a target) they would be strategic anti-spike or spike or bonus consistent dmg fields… points of team based focus, and contention…

To kind of fit that mold, conditions would have to be put more towards debuffs than dps, but whatever, I don’t feel like typing more atm.