Guild Wars 2

Permanent stability is a major issue, and should be treated as such. It seems that the balance team (from what seen on the preview) wishes to improve boon corruption to counteract this. But, at the same time, what do you do of a class relying on crowd control to survive against classes with permanent stability, which does not have ways to corrupt stability?

Relying on teamates could be a solution, but doesn’t that sort of mentality taking 1v1 metrics out of the way only causes more Hyper Counters Metas (Rock Paper Scissors).

For example, Condition Necros will surely be able to corrupt stability anytime against Revenant. While Revenant has a constant and disposable source of stability and negates any defensive crowd control a staff elementalist can send. And as a solution to tune down stability on Revenant, boon corruption is added, while elementalist is kept with the issue of facing permanent stability.

(Of course, one may be tempted to use R-P-S logic and think that elementalist will beat necro since necro beats revenants who beats elementalist. Necromancer will also beat elementalists hands down due to the boon corruption.)

We need lots of stability to counter how much AoE CC there is. It isn’t like the revenant stability is free, you need a dodge to activate it and within the context of how much CC is flying around actually feels balanced. Tone down AoE CC then nerf stability on dodge accordingly. Revenant also lacks reliable self-healing outside of Mallyx, which not everyone runs.

There’s a Sigil that strips boons on hit, is there not? Everyone has access to that. Maybe your Elementalist should swap his Energy sigil to that one come the balance patch.

Yeah, boon spam is a bit out of control lately. Always nice for me as a Reaper, but of course not everyone has access to boon strips. And then Anet keeps throwing more boon corrupts at us and it’s like, “whoah dude, we got plenty of that already.”

Xiahou Mao.9701:

There’s a Sigil that strips boons on hit, is there not? Everyone has access to that. Maybe your Elementalist should swap his Energy sigil to that one come the balance patch.

Sigil of Nullification. 60% on crit to remove one boon (10 sec ICD). Should be 5 ICD with the rythm boons are given. And it’s also random. Pulsing boons are also extremely (did I say extremely?) popular these days. Rampage as One, Infusing Terror.

Boon corrupts are random too. The only boon strip/corrupt that I’m aware of that actually prioritizes certain boons is Bountiful Theft for the Thief.

Sigil of Nullification could stand to be improved, but it’s still there as an option should you wish to give boon stripping to a class that can’t normally do so.

Xiahou Mao.9701:

Boon corrupts are random too. The only boon strip/corrupt that I’m aware of that actually prioritizes certain boons is Bountiful Theft for the Thief.

Sigil of Nullification could stand to be improved, but it’s still there as an option should you wish to give boon stripping to a class that can’t normally do so.

And between 1 removal every 10 seconds (if lucky on crits, so roughly 1 every 12 seconds with marauder) and an active multiple removal (like signet necros), both are random, but one is way more random than the other.

Nullification is an option already tested on my part, and did not prove efficient pre-HoT and it might be worst during the era of durability runes. It is something you barely notice.

Then there’s nothing your staff Elementalist can do against someone with permanent Stability. Besides depend on the rest of your team.

Xiahou Mao.9701:

Then there’s nothing your staff Elementalist can do against someone with permanent Stability. Besides depend on the rest of your team.

Then it is rock-paper-scissors extreme counters. Something a sucessful game like League of Legends distanced itself from years ago.

Also put eye in cc abuse of Chronomancer, DH and Scrapper…

Well, lets try to actually analyze this, then.

A Revenant has two methods to gain Stability. The first and likely more common one in PvP is in the Retribution trait line, wherein a Revenant gains Stability after dodging. This grants two and a half seconds of Stability, while it takes ten seconds to recover the endurance from the dodge roll. Assuming boon duration comes into play from Herald, this might be able to grant the Revenant a stack of Stability that lasts for four seconds.

The second Revenant ability that grants Stability is Inspiring Reinforcement, the road-dropping utility skill in the Jalis legend. I honestly don’t think I’ve seen anyone use this in PvP. Ever. Others can comment if they have. Jalis legend certainly isn’t part of the meta build for either the Power Revenant or Condi Revenant. Regardless, the road pulses one second of Stability while standing on it for five seconds, and has a ten second cooldown. Theoretically, this could combine with the Stability on dodge trait to grant close to constant Stability upkeep, but it would require the Revenant to be standing on the small road area to keep the Stability pulsing, which to me seems to just be begging for a Lava Font from your Staff Elementalist.

There is also a Herald trait that causes them to gain two stacks of Stability any time they gain a stack. This does not actually lengthen the duration of any of their Stability sources, it just lets them ignore one extra CC hit within their duration.

So, unless you’ve somehow found a very dedicated Jalis Revenant who’s stalking you through PvP games, laying down roads and not actually doing anything else useful like pulsing Glint boons, enjoying Mallyx condition immunity or embracing Shiro Quickness, it seems like you’re exaggerating “permanent Stability”.

Xiahou Mao.9701:

There is also a Herald trait that causes them to gain two stacks of Stability any time they gain a stack. This does not actually lengthen the duration of any of their Stability sources, it just lets them ignore one extra CC hit within their duration.

No. It grants an extra stack lasting 5 seconds (added to Herald Minor boon trait + Durability runes; it goes to 6 seconds 3/4).

Ah, that’s a better trait than I thought it was, then.

Still not permanent Stability, though. And to take it, the Herald has to give up the automatic Crystal Hibernation proc trait, which grants them staying power in and of itself. Durability runes will be going away next week as well, which should address some of your concerns. In the meantime, just focus on dealing damage, since if the Herald is burning their dodges to try to resist CC instead of actually dodging things, and they’re using the meta Viper amulet without the bonus Crystal Hibernation proc, you should be able to take them down with direct damage.

Xiahou Mao.9701:

Ah, that’s a better trait than I thought it was, then.

Still not permanent Stability, though. And to take it, the Herald has to give up the automatic Crystal Hibernation proc trait, which grants them staying power in and of itself. Durability runes will be going away next week as well, which should address some of your concerns. In the meantime, just focus on dealing damage, since if the Herald is burning their dodges to try to resist CC instead of actually dodging things, and they’re using the meta Viper amulet without the bonus Crystal Hibernation proc, you should be able to take them down with direct damage.

Elementalist Necro, and Revenant was simply an example. I do not need advices on what to do. I am simply looking at how stability is given on certain classes and how CC becomes completely inneffective against them. This hurts classes that relied on CC for their defenses.

You either burst through the Stability with multiple CCs, or you wait for it to go away. It’s just how it is. Some classes have a lot of Stability, some classes have very little. Some classes have a lot of CC, some classes have very little. Some classes can bypass Stability via boon corruption or Bountiful Theft, some classes can’t (outside a certain Sigil).

It’s not like it’s just Stability. Resistance makes conditions completely ineffective against someone who has it applied. You can’t burst through that like you can burst through a stack or two of Stability. Are we going to nerf Viper Revenant now?

(yes, yes we are, wait for Tuesday)

Well, then…

My opinion is there is too much of both hard cc and too much stability. Everything seems to have just so much cc flying around now that even slick shoes feels minor by comparison to druid daze spam, eles aura sharing shocking aura, engi tripple leap finisher through lightning field, draggon hunter trap daze spam, longbow 5 and passive longbow knockback, chronomancers with many things, etc etc etc.

So to counter this basically every meta/near meta build has a crap ton of stability uptime. Traditionally guardian was the class utilized the most stability with stand your ground and traited virtue of courage giving about 30% stability uptime. Now reapers are pushing around 40% up time on pulsing stability with a class that was meant to be weak to cc just for using the reaper traitline. This is just the area of the game where I feel the power creep is by far the most obvious and it goes both ways.

ArthurDent.9538:

My opinion is there is too much of both hard cc and too much stability. Everything seems to have just so much cc flying around now that even slick shoes feels minor by comparison to druid daze spam, eles aura sharing shocking aura, engi tripple leap finisher through lightning field, draggon hunter trap daze spam, longbow 5 and passive longbow knockback, chronomancers with many things, etc etc etc.

So to counter this basically every meta/near meta build has a crap ton of stability uptime. Traditionally guardian was the class utilized the most stability with stand your ground and traited virtue of courage giving about 30% stability uptime. Now reapers are pushing around 40% up time on pulsing stability with a class that was meant to be weak to cc just for using the reaper traitline. This is just the area of the game where I feel the power creep is by far the most obvious and it goes both ways.

Luckily, CC is going slightly down with Static Aura getting a 4 seconds treatment. CC on DH trap to 0.5 seconds down from 1….

But where is druids CCs reduction?