Guild Wars 2

Currently, the Combo System has the Combo Initiator (Combo Field) and the Combo Finisher.
Combos, however, are heavily dependant on AoE effects that create Combo Fields.
Meaning whenever ANet wants to add a Combo Initiator, it must be okay to add an AoE as well.

I have a few suggestions to expand upon the Combo system that makes the game cooler, but also gives ANet more versatility in the designing of Skills:

1. Combo Essence (placeholder name) – Add a new Combo Initiator that only affects your skills and is displayed as a temporary buff on yourself rather than an AoE on the ground.
   Example: Ride the Lightning could give you Combo Essence: Lightning for 5 seconds, and then you can use Arcane Blast/Wave to trigger it.
2. Combo Mark (based on Capn Evan.4586’s Target Combo idea) – Add a new Combo Initiator that works like a targetted Combo Essence,. It’s applied as a temporary debuff, and causes Combo Finishers used against the marked target(s) to create a Combo.
   - This allows ANet to design Combos with more fine tuned balance.
3. Multi-Element Finisher – Add an X to the Combo Finishers, representing the number of Initiators that can affect the finisher simultaneously.
   Example: “Combo Finisher: Projectile 2”
   This means if 3 Combo Fields were created in this order: Fire, Poison, Smoke, your finisher will apply Burning and Poison, but not Blindness.
   - This allows ANet to balance each Combo Finisher individually, allowing certain skills the ability to benefit from 1, others from 2 and some even from 3 Combo Initiators.*
4. Combo Finisher: Whirl – Change Combo Finisher: Whirl to produce 3 waves with 120º radius each, in a smooth, whirlwind motion, covering a total 360º around the user, rather than shooting random projectiles. Range of the waves can be lower than the Combo Finisher: Projectile, but higher than Combo Finisher: Blast.
   - My reasoning for this one, is that random projectiles simply don’t reward player skill.
5. Combo Finisher: Cone – Add a new type of Combo Finisher that instead of affecting things in a circle AoE, affects everything in a cone.
   - Applies the same effects as Combo Finisher: Projectile/Whirl.
6. Combo Finisher: Line – Add a new type of Combo Finisher that instead of affecting things in a circle AoE, affects everything in a straight line.
   - Applies the same effects as Combo Finisher: Projectile/Whirl.
7. Combo Finisher: Strike (by Conncept.7638) – Add a new type of Combo Finisher that works for Melee attacks.
   - Applies the same effects as Combo Finisher: Projectile/Whirl.
8. Combo Breaker (by Conncept.7638) – Allow some abilities to destroy Combo Fields within the radius and remove Combo Essence from affected enemies and Combo Mark from affected allies.
9. Enemy (prefix) (insert type) Finisher
   Ability makes use of enemy Combo Initiators instead of friendly Combo Initiators.
   Friendly Combo Field: No Effect
   Combo Essence on Self: No Effect
   Combo Mark on Target: No Effect
   Enemy Combo Field: Works as a Friendly Combo Field normally does
   Combo Essence on Target: Works as Combo Mark normally does
   Combo Mark on Self: Works as Combo Essence normally does
   Example: Enemy Projectile Finisher 3 benefits from up to 3 Enemy Initiators.
10. Omni (prefix)
    Ability makes use of both friendly and enemy combo initiators.
    Friendly Combo Field: Normal Effect
    Combo Essence on Self: Normal Effect
    Combo Mark on Target: Normal Effect
    Enemy Combo Field: Works as a Friendly Combo Field normally does
    Combo Essence on Target: Works as Combo Mark normally does
    Combo Mark on Self: Works as Combo Essence normally does
    If available, a finisher will benefit from both a Friendly and an Enemy Initiator.
    In the case of Multi-Finishers, it will benefit from X Friendly and X Enemy Initiators.
    Example: Omni Projectile Finisher 2 benefits from up to 2 Friendly plus 2 Enemy Initiators.

How about Target Combos? (placeholder name) – Whenever you use a Target Combo attack, you will add a mark on that target for a few seconds. If someone else uses a Target Combo attack, it will count as a combo. Basically, the first Target Combo attack adds a mark, and the next removes it and adds an extra effect.

Awesome ideas btw.

That is also great!
Will add it to the above suggestion (with some tweaks, let me know if you like them).

The reasoning behind the tweaks, is that I think it should work like a targetted Combo Essence – a debuff that makes combo finishers used against that target create combos.
The name could be Combo Spark or Combo Mark or something.

Because if it’s done exactly as you suggested, it feels like it isn’t part of the combo system, but something outside of it.

It’s great, I’m just throwing ideas out there, so I’m not the perfectionist :P

I love these ideas!

I’m not really that perfectionist, but alot of forums have some “vigilantes” that like to nitpick at details in discussions/suggestions, so one either ignores or develops some “defensive” habits xD

Made a few additions to the original suggestion, this time regarding Combo Finishers.
Please discuss.

If Combo Finisher: Whirl at least sent 8 Projectiles in the cardinal different directions, in quick succession, either Clockwise, or counter-clockwise, it would be acceptable.
Like N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW.

I think this wouldn’t take much work and would produce excellent results in the short and long term.
Any further comments?

Capn Evan.4586:

How about Target Combos? (placeholder name) – Whenever you use a Target Combo attack, you will add a mark on that target for a few seconds. If someone else uses a Target Combo attack, it will count as a combo. Basically, the first Target Combo attack adds a mark, and the next removes it and adds an extra effect.

Awesome ideas btw.

I must say, however, that your specific suggestion looks like a nice idea for skill concept.
It’s essentially like Akali’s Q or Leona’s passive, from League of Legends.

We really need Combo Fields to become more meaningful, because no one really bothers building around it..

Capn Evan.4586:

How about Target Combos? (placeholder name) – Whenever you use a Target Combo attack, you will add a mark on that target for a few seconds. If someone else uses a Target Combo attack, it will count as a combo. Basically, the first Target Combo attack adds a mark, and the next removes it and adds an extra effect.

Awesome ideas btw.

Anything they do to refine the combo system will be a great addition.

Guild Wars 1 sold for its amazing variety and customizability.
Guild Wars 2 should follow the example.

I like all these ideas so far. The idea that you can directly create a combo on a specific enemy is something that I can see working. For example, a cold attack, that when directly followed by a fire attack, does extra damage. Or a fire attack, when combined with a water attack, creates a steam AOE effect on top of that foe.

Or how about dealing a killing blow with a cold attack, which freezes the enemy, and allows that enemy to be shattered by the next follow up attack, which then flings sharp projectiles in all directions to nearby enemies for extra damage (and maybe cause bleeding).

That kind of chain interactions would probably be tougher to design and balance, but would be awesome indeed.
It seems like it would have to be skill specific, or at least each skill would need a bunch of “tags”, in order to help determine what it does in what circumstances.

I’m merely suggesting a few additions that use what we already have, with minor modifications.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Or how about dealing a killing blow with a cold attack, which freezes the enemy, and allows that enemy to be shattered by the next follow up attack, which then flings sharp projectiles in all directions to nearby enemies for extra damage (and maybe cause bleeding).

This is actually a pretty good idea – at least the “fatality” part.
The flying projectiles might be overkill…

However, I’m not sure if it clashes with any “age rating” GW2 is trying to maintain, though.

Nurvus.2891:

This is actually a pretty good idea – at least the “fatality” part.
The flying projectiles might be overkill…

However, I’m not sure if it clashes with any “age rating” GW2 is trying to maintain, though.

It doesn’t have to be gruesome. It can simply be a block of ice that the enemy turns into, which then explodes in ice shards.

However, without the flying projectiles the combo element is lost, because that was what I was getting at. A specific kind of damage, that chains with a previous attack from another player. The enemy dies from cold damage, so the end result is that he’s frozen. But then the follow up attack, depending on the type of attack, does something extra that deals bonus damage. Either to the target itself, or to nearby enemies.

For example, you set an enemy on fire, and then hit it with a cold attack, which results in a cloud of hot steam that hits adjacent enemies. You could do some really interesting combos this way.

Oh, that makes sense.
Yeah that’d be cool.

Wouldn’t be easy to implement.

Combo Field : Blood

A field that warriors could make. blasts in a blood field could induce Fear…

I like the ideas in the OP. They are some solid ideas that could lay the groundwork for a much more interesting combo system.
Personally I feel anet just need to make CROSS-profesion combos more powerful to make the system more viable but that could be done AND fine tunes with the system you have outlined in the first post.
It would need a lot of tweaking and testing but I can see it being a really fun and involed aspect of the game.
Thumbs Up.

My two ideas

• Strike Finisher
  A melee equivalent of the Projectile finisher.

• Combo Breakers
  Certain abilities now destroy combo fields. This would be a great addition to several classes, and would add a lot to PvP gameplay, where smoke, light, and other fields are becoming way too powerful with no real counterplay. But at the same time, if they add this they really need to add more fields and finishers as well.

Cool, Conncept. Added your ideas to the OP.
Also added 2 new ideas:
Enemy and Omni (insert type) finishers.

Enemy finisher does not use the normal combo initiators, and instead uses the enemy combo fields as your own, uses enemy combo mark on you as combo essence, and combo essence on enemy as combo mark.

Omni finisher benefits from both 1 friendly plus 1 enemy combo initiator.