Guild Wars 2

Some boons are fine as it is, but some need a better visual effect so you can act on the fly rather than taking that 0.5 seconds to look at the opponents UI to see what boons they have.

Example:
A Guardian activates Stability to finish off an opponent.

As a Necromancer, I need to know if he has Stability so I can decide whether to use Spectral Grasp (which won’t work because of Stability) or use Corrupt Boon which will corrupt his Stability to Fear. I need to know this without looking at his UI because every moment is crucial in decision making.

I also need to know what boons the opponent has because maybe he has an increase of damage and I should play defensively or remove his boons. But if I look up to his UI I may get hit by an arrow in the knee and take 1K damage.

Similarly, my opponents should know I have Stability when I enter Death Shroud from my Foot in the Grave trait that allows me Stability every 10 seconds. Maybe then they won’t waste valuable skills unknowingly.

To quote someone from PZ who do many tournaments. (Players Anet should listen to)

Follidus.8027: “Yeah this would be nice to have more visual effects if done right. Especially on stability.”
Team PZ
www.teamPZ.com
www.twitch.tv/follidus

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Boons that are fine as it is:
• Swiftness – Hard to miss. Your opponent is faster and has yellow stuff underneath them.
• Aegis – A giant shield appears which shrinks and stays on your off-hand until hit.
• Protection – Blue swirls around your character. Fairly easy to notice.
• Quickness – You attack two times as fast. It’s obvious.

Those boons visual effects also match up with their boon icon. Every boon should be this way so that it is easy to distinguish without too much thought.

Boons that need a better visual effect:
• Stability – Should be obvious white ripples under the characters position. This effect would make sense visually by showing the weight effect of a pillar of stability.
http://tinyurl.com/ce76vvu

• Might – (Edited) Similar to how Aegis first appears as a large shield and then shrinks, a large sword should appear each time you gain a stack of Might, shrink like Aegis does but it should simply shrink and vanish. If you gain a stack of Might all at once, like Blood is Power (10 stack) the animation should only happen once and not 10 consecutive times.

• Regeneration – The best solution is to make it so that every player can see the health said player is regenerating. Currently, only the player regenerating health can see the numbers popping up of what they’re healing by. This should be made so all players can see it instead. Knowing when they’re healing will help us utilize Poison to its fullest potential.
http://oi49.tinypic.com/244cnew.jpg

• Fury – A character with Fury active should have a red glow to them similar to the Rampage as One Ranger elite skill. When a player gets a massive 20% critical chance bonus it should be obvious so that we are able to counter.
http://oi50.tinypic.com/2cp3mzt.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/cymwfd4

• Vigor – Leaves are green. The Vigor icon is a leaf. The effect for Vigor should be exactly the same as the stamina buffs in Dark Souls – vertical, green straight lines around the character. Would help in determining how much your Weakness condition is affecting them or if you should attempt to land a heavy hit.
http://tinyurl.com/bvw2797
http://tinyurl.com/c9kdtjt
http://tinyurl.com/blc8jws

• Retaliation – Another extremely strong boon, but you almost never know that the opponent has it because it isn’t obvious enough. A lot of time you don’t even realize they used Retaliation until you see the death screen where it shows ~2K damage. This boon should act the same as the Confusion condition. A fist icon that pops up on the attacker the same as the Confusion condition does when you attack. Although, should it appear on the character who is using the boon instead? This way players would know where Retaliation is hitting them from.
http://oi47.tinypic.com/121v86x.jpg

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These changes will affect SPvP for the better as it will help players organize their combat strategy better. There will be very little clutter if done correctly.

Not only will these changes help PvP, but they’ll add a much needed intimidation factor to the game as well. With a boon like Fury that gives you 20% more critical chance, it should be a little bit intimidating. It shouldn’t be completely oblivious to everyone that you have Fury. It is a powerful boon.

And here it is with my amazing photoshop skills!
(Try to imagine it done professionally)
http://oi47.tinypic.com/anzkt1.jpg

hmm i really wonder how my ele would look like when he has stability,might,fury,protection,regenaration and swiftness all at the same time
:P

kostbabis.8791:

hmm i really wonder how my ele would look like when he has stability,might,fury,protection,regenaration and swiftness all at the same time
:P

A mess.

I’m actually okay with might and fury not being all that visible, but I do agree regeneration and stability need to show.

Nah it wouldn’t be a mess. It just needs to be done correctly and not over the top. Current buffs like the current retaliation aren’t done well enough though. I bet most don’t even know it actually has an effect currently. It does, but it’s impossible to notice in combat.

I think the current retaliation is fine, it just need particle effects similar to aegis to be noticeable, and possibly more opaque coloring. Having muliple lines go through your character would be pretty messy.

It would certainly make my job as an engineer a little bit less painful. It’s tough to keep track of how many people in a fight currently have stability and whether or not I should use my AoE cc.

However, I don’t feel ripped off when I blow a cooldown uselessly—at least I feel like I could have seen the stability boon and played better.

I can understand retaliation and stability, but do you really need visual cues for the others? Not really………

Yeah this would be nice to have more visual effects if done right. Especially on stability.

I’d take being able to turn all of them off and just move the enemy boon bar to directly below the enemy nameplate. eyes travel no further than on my enemy ftw! Likewise I’d like to be able to have my boon bar removed and placed under my characters feet, scaled so it’s not too big and alt+click any buff puts it at the bottom of the screen with a little tooltip so I know what it does (in case I see something I don’t recognize normally). This doesn’t even require a visual cue that might interfere with someone else’s graphics processing (and would allow me to turn mine down some), as this is would be a client side UI update. That said, being able to turn on or off specific visual boon indicators would be most excellent, and these updates to them that you’ve listed and shown could be quite good, vigor and retaliation don’t show up well for my eyes though.

Stability i agree.

myb retalation, but rest are fine imo.

I think retaliation wouldn’t even have to be a visual effect; if it were just to just make a certain sound when it was up and I was hitting an opponent. Better yet if they choose to improve upon the combat text it could easily be identified there too. Stability should be more visually obvious, though.

I’d love to see that change to stability but for Retaliation, in my opinion, this method would be better (beware, old post, Retaliation’s icon was changed since):
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Retaliation-how-about-a-special-feedback-pop-up-like-with-Confusion/first#post285078
edit: with new icon: http://i.imgur.com/fkaWt.jpg

I don’t really like the idea for Regeneration though, ’+’s popping up just isn’t the same style as other boons – I’m pretty sure nobody wants to see UI-like elements at any other place than the UI. The green particles would be enough, regeneration isn’t that important to react to anyway.

Fury sounds like a good idea but it shouldn’t be that obnoxiously red, maybe some red particles around the character like ‘Rampage as One’ ranger elite but making the whole character red would be way too annoying to see for me.

I’d be a ball of light most of the time then….

Most Guardians have multiple boons up all the time. Save Yourselves alone gives you seven boons.

I updated the main post and picture.

I like the idea with Retaliation being a fist like confusion as it makes the most sense. As for Fury, making it the same as Rampage as One is a way better idea so I updated it to show it. I’ve never seen that skill before so I never even knew it existed.

Personally, I’d be fine with just Stability, Retaliation and Fury having an effect. I guess it depends on what their art team is able to do.

Also cleared Regeneration up. It probably makes more sense for other players to see what they’re healing as well rather than inventing a whole new mechanic.

Ruufio.1496:

Also cleared Regeneration up. It probably makes more sense for other players to see what they’re healing as well rather than inventing a whole new mechanic.

Isn’t that how regeneration currently works for your own character? I would be nice to see regen numbers off of allies regardless of who applied it. You have to be careful of number clutter though.

Yeah it works like that for yourself currently. It would make sense for allies and opponents to see it as well IMO.

I don’t think number clutter would be much of an issue in PvP though because it’s only 5v5 or 8v8 and a lot of the time your entire team isn’t in the same area.

Agreed. I want to compete with players, not fight the UI.

Bump 15 characters

Ruufio.1496:

Yeah it works like that for yourself currently. It would make sense for allies and opponents to see it as well IMO.

I don’t think number clutter would be much of an issue in PvP though because it’s only 5v5 or 8v8 and a lot of the time your entire team isn’t in the same area.

I’m worried that, with too many effects, it’ll obscure or distract from crucial wind up animations. Cramming many different color effects onto a character is may already be pushing it for some as well.

Bump fifteen characters.

Bump since mods are looking at forums lately.

wish there was a way to increase scale of buffs on target and just customize the UI in general

Why do the mods post on this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Increase-the-size-of-boon-symbols-on-enemy

About adjusting the size of icons, and not this thread about actual visual effects… with frigging EXAMPLES?

You could… I dunno, add better visual effects?

I like the fact that players yell out slogans of effects like, “I feel stronger” signifying might or “Swift as a centaur” for swiftness, but in a team fight, these things appear to be turned down. I really only notice them out of combat.