Guild Wars 2

Eviscerate.

ty for listening men

High cost, high reward, highly avoidable, requires good positioning, leap finisher, part of a high-direct damage weapon set. Yep.

Landing a big Eviscerate feels so good.

Well designed = slow as kitten? Even streetfigher had weak punch.

Now now, we know that Asura Skullcrack to be best designed. Highly telegraphed, highly visible, highly avoidable.

Stof.9584:

Landing a big Eviscerate feels so good.

Every skill should feel this way, other than auto attack.

waka.9826:

Eviscerate.

ty for listening men

I would argue the ele staff.

It is slow activating, extremely telegraphed, average damage, makes melee useful. The only flaws are the fact that the game is designed to be spammy and fast space (again spammy) and dodging is free cheap.

silvermember.8941:

waka.9826:

Eviscerate.

ty for listening men

I would argue the ele staff.

It is slow activating, extremely telegraphed, average damage, makes melee useful. The only flaws are the fact that the game is designed to be spammy and fast space (again spammy) and dodging is free cheap.

Agreed. I don’t think weapons like ele staff, ranger longbow, necro axe should be viewed as underpowered, but what everything else should be like. Spam weapons / abilities need to be changed.

I would argue everything about ele is well-designed except the instant-burst S/D combo. D/D is so telegraphed in every way, and requires skill/lining up to land (i.e. burning speed/firegrab). Staff, as mentioned before faces the same issue. S/D – dragon’s tooth and shatterstone are unreasonably hard to land (only useful on downed enemies or on point, which ele doesn’t have survivability to fight on point), and even something like phoenix or dust devil is well telegraphed.

Churning Earth is very well designed. Large AoE damage, Cripple and Bleeding - but long casting time, can be interrupted and dodged if one pay attention.

Come on now, churning earth? Even with lightning flash churning earth is only hitting you if you’re under CC pressure from someone else as well. The game is fast, adapt. You’ll be asking for GCDs next.

Another well designed skill is Concussion Shot. A vanilla daze (interrupt), itself very valuable in the hands of a skilled player, that can be turned into a deadly stun if it from behind. Conditionality like this is something I dearly miss compared to other games, including GW1. The action MMO combat lends itself perfectly to it, yet with a few exceptions like this one it doesn’t get used. It would massively improve the mindless spamming that is running rampant.

Yup Ele definately has the most clear well telegraphed abilities and most require CC to work.

Like the old Dragon/Phoenix/Grab + CC combo.

The new Air Attunement burst stuff is an example of how things should NOT be.

Mammoth.1975:

Come on now, churning earth? Even with lightning flash churning earth is only hitting you if you’re under CC pressure from someone else as well. The game is fast, adapt. You’ll be asking for GCDs next.

I don’t think you quite understand why I think the skill is well designed.

- Good animation
- Good risk/reward ratio
- You can interrupt/dodge it reliably.

The problem is not that Churning Earth is slow. The problem is that dodges, stability, aegis, vigor etc. are so spamable, that Churning Earth never hits. Imagine if you had to carefully time your Churning Earth, because you visually saw that your enemies was out of dodges. This is what makes a great skill.

Adian.8756:

Mammoth.1975:

Come on now, churning earth? Even with lightning flash churning earth is only hitting you if you’re under CC pressure from someone else as well. The game is fast, adapt. You’ll be asking for GCDs next.

I don’t think you quite understand why I think the skill is well designed.

- Good animation
- Good Risk/Reward ratio
- You can interrupt/Dodge it reliably.

The problem is not that Churning Earth is slow. The problem is that dodges, stability, aegis, vigor etc. are so spamable, that Churning Earth never hits. Imagine if you had to carefully time your Churning Earth, because you visually saw that your enemies was out of dodges. This is what makes a great skill.

I guess it’s just a difference of opinion on the risk reward ratio. I can get behind evisc being well designed, although not the only well designed skill, because I think it is appropriately telegraphed in exchange for what you get. I also agree with concussion shot being well designed, even though it’s a fast skill with a potentially very strong effect. Churning earth though? Good for killing AI i guess?

Also, you should be saving your easy to dodge and/or high impact skills for when your opponent is out of dodges. If some people are able to track that and others are not, it’s not the games fault.

Mammoth.1975:

Adian.8756:

Mammoth.1975:

Come on now, churning earth? Even with lightning flash churning earth is only hitting you if you’re under CC pressure from someone else as well. The game is fast, adapt. You’ll be asking for GCDs next.

I don’t think you quite understand why I think the skill is well designed.

- Good animation
- Good Risk/Reward ratio
- You can interrupt/Dodge it reliably.

The problem is not that Churning Earth is slow. The problem is that dodges, stability, aegis, vigor etc. are so spamable, that Churning Earth never hits. Imagine if you had to carefully time your Churning Earth, because you visually saw that your enemies was out of dodges. This is what makes a great skill.

I guess it’s just a difference of opinion on the risk reward ratio. I can get behind evisc being well designed, although not the only well designed skill, because I think it is appropriately difficult to land in exchange for what you get. I also agree with concussion shot being well designed, even though it’s a fast skill with a potentially very strong effect. Churning earth though? Good for killing AI i guess?

Standing still for 3 seconds, to potentially deal a 5000 (crit) AoE damage, 8 stacks of bleeding, and cripple, seems like a fair trade to me. I do agree, however, that the casting time is a bit too long with the current meta. But I’d rather see a decrease in spamable skills, dodges and boons, than a decrease in Churning Earth’s cooldown.

Mammoth.1975:

Also, you should be saving your easy to dodge and/or high impact skills for when your opponent is out of dodges. If some people are able to track that and others are not, it’s not the games fault.

I do save my dodges. But keeping track of how much endurance your enemy has, when traits give 50% increased regeneration, vigor gives 100%, sigils recharge another 50% on swap and skills can recharge it as well, is fairly tough.

While I agree with your definition of what makes a good skill, I think the game would have to take some pretty big redesign hits; mesmer phantasms being a good example.

Very nice points with dodging and stability/invul. Perma vigor is way too rampant vs power classes, but you wont have enough dodges in the world to avoid a condi spam build, as no matter what you dodge, they can just continue to spam conditions.

Adian.8756:

But keeping track of how much endurance your enemy has, when traits give 50% increased regeneration, vigor gives 100%, sigils recharge another 50% on swap and skills can recharge it as well, is fairly tough.

It is, but in exchange you get to land a 5000 aoe crit, 8 stacks of bleeding, and cripple. Make sense?

Mammoth.1975:

Adian.8756:

But keeping track of how much endurance your enemy has, when traits give 50% increased regeneration, vigor gives 100%, sigils recharge another 50% on swap and skills can recharge it as well, is fairly tough.

It is, but in exchange you get to land a 5000 aoe crit, 8 stacks of bleeding, and cripple. Make sense?

Except, it’s currently impossible, as you stated in your initial post. With the massive amount of endurance regeneration, even if I were to perfectly time my Churning Earth when my enemy was completely out of endurance, he’s easily able to regenerate enough to dodge the skill, in the 3 seconds casting time. And even if he isn’t, blocks and/or invulnerable can still do the trick.

Kata.6795:

While I agree with your definition of what makes a good skill, I think the game would have to take some pretty big redesign hits; mesmer phantasms being a good example.

Very nice points with dodging and stability/invul. Perma vigor is way too rampant vs power classes, but you wont have enough dodges in the world to avoid a condi spam build, as no matter what you dodge, they can just continue to spam conditions.

This is the common misconception people have with condis I think. Take a necro. If you dodge enfeebling blood, which has a huge tell, you avoided about 3k worth of bleeding, and a long duration weakness as well. If you dodge a scepter auto you avoided about 600 worth of bleeding. Condi hits are just like power hits, there’s big ones and little ones, and you have to know which ones to dodge. The main one that could probably use a clearer tell on necros is mark of blood. It’s a lot of aoe bleeding on a short cooldown with a fast and unclear indicator. That would alleviate the problem people have identifying the other marks too.

BTW, I have fought guards who dodged every third scepter hit until I had 9 stacks of bleed up, then when a poison landed, finally used their first shout to clear both. Knowing the order the other guys skills are likely to come in is just as relevant as knowing their tells. This is one of the many reasons that the spamming everyone complains about fails against competent players.

Adian.8756:

Except, it’s currently impossible, as you stated in your initial post. With the massive amount of endurance regeneration, even if I were to perfectly time my Churning Earth when my enemy was completely out of endurance, he’s easily able to regenerate enough to dodge the skill, in the 3 seconds casting time. And even if he isn’t, blocks and/or invulnerable can still do the trick.

Well that would be one reason why I don’t like churning earth

Mammoth.1975:

Adian.8756:

Except, it’s currently impossible, as you stated in your initial post. With the massive amount of endurance regeneration, even if I were to perfectly time my Churning Earth when my enemy was completely out of endurance, he’s easily able to regenerate enough to dodge the skill, in the 3 seconds casting time. And even if he isn’t, blocks and/or invulnerable can still do the trick.

Well that would be one reason why I don’t like churning earth

But then we’re back to the meta being bad, and not the skill

Adian.8756:

Mammoth.1975:

Adian.8756:

But keeping track of how much endurance your enemy has, when traits give 50% increased regeneration, vigor gives 100%, sigils recharge another 50% on swap and skills can recharge it as well, is fairly tough.

It is, but in exchange you get to land a 5000 aoe crit, 8 stacks of bleeding, and cripple. Make sense?

Except, it’s currently impossible, as you stated in your initial post. With the massive amount of endurance regeneration, even if I were to perfectly time my Churning Earth when my enemy was completely out of endurance, he’s easily able to regenerate enough to dodge the skill, in the 3 seconds casting time. And even if he isn’t, blocks and/or invulnerable can still do the trick.

You forgot to mention, with the current design of the skill, 1 blind, which you have 3 seconds to apply, negates 100% of the damage. I suppose you could swap to water mid-cast, but now you just gave up your primary defensive mechanic on the off-chance that the skill somehow hits, your opponents has casually strolled away, that you also have lightning flash available, and you haven’t been killed in time. The risk reward is likewise very low.

It is only occasionally useful if you can use it unnoticed and LF into a fight.

Adian.8756:

Mammoth.1975:

Adian.8756:

Except, it’s currently impossible, as you stated in your initial post. With the massive amount of endurance regeneration, even if I were to perfectly time my Churning Earth when my enemy was completely out of endurance, he’s easily able to regenerate enough to dodge the skill, in the 3 seconds casting time. And even if he isn’t, blocks and/or invulnerable can still do the trick.

Well that would be one reason why I don’t like churning earth

But then we’re back to the meta being bad, and not the skill

No, we’re back to churning earth having a 3 second cast time, while stuff like eviscerate, earthshaker, or signet of spite take about 1 second to land, making tracking enemy dodges worthwhile. They’re still very easy to dodge if you have endurance and are not CCed, even with lag like mine, and they still have a similar level of impact. No idea why something would need a 3s cast time.

Burning Speed is the best designed attack in the game.