Guild Wars 2

Problem:
I often have passive trait abilities that activate at a set time intervals that I wish I knew the cooldown timers so that I can better coordinate my skills. Knowing these timers will improve the way you use your skills effectively (not activating your weapon/utility skills at the same time as your passive traits). This problem is more or less highlighted during competitive PvP.

Examples:
Warrior: Using ‘Balanced Stance’ when the trait ‘Last Stand’ is already in use.
Guardian: Using a condition removal skill when ‘Purity’ is about to activate.
Engineer: Using a dodge or a block skill when ‘Armor Mods’ is about to activate.
Necromancer: ‘Chill of Death’ activating after using ‘Spinal Shivers’ on a low-health target.
Elementalist: Activating ‘Shocking Aura’ before ‘Tempest Defense’ activates.

Suggestion:
Add a system that can let you know the cooldown on passive trait abilities like adding indicators or timers somewhere in the UI. This system could be added on either side of the UI, right side having more space. Adding such a system should not clutter the current UI and should be optional to the player.

Sample Image:
The image shows the addition of such a system on the UI on the right-hand side of the screen. The cooldown timers are shown on the trait icon for various Guardian passive trait abilities (in order; Valorous Defense (54s/90s), Purity (7s/10s), Glacial Heart (24s/30s), Vigorous Precision (1s/5s) and Resolute Healer (55s/60s)). The cooldown timers are indicated in the same fashion as timers on weapon and utility skills. Hovering your cursor over these icons will show the appropriate tooltip of the passive ability (not shown).

I disagree with your idea on two grounds;

1. If anything we need to move away from a trait system that has cooldowns for their effects. At the very least make the cooldowns exist on traits that the player has control over (not the ones that trigger on uncontrolled happen-stance).

2. Any increased amount of UI clutter is to be considered a threat by both ANet as well as the players who like the current UI. The only additions they should be making at this point are for increased weapon skill and utility bars.

I would also like some kind of, at least toggleable, timer UI element like that but I would also want to extend it to include things like actual skills (Signet of Resolve, Virtue of Courage), rune and sigil effect cooldowns and summon durations to it as well (for example, spirit weapons). It would really help with coordinating skills and playing better rather than guessing.

You can already turn on cooldown timers for your skills that appear on the icons themselves. Why would you need a secondary timer for them?

I agree with OP in a way… I use the traits with CD on more or less all my chars but for example with my guardian I don’t have any active condition removal, I have trait and signet wich removes each ten seconds (Works wonders) but sometimes I have died becouse I have been stupid enough to trust on my traits and signet to remove bleeding and poison for me to not burst-heal up before I bleed to death or something.
And also ofc running around hoping your passive will activate in time is stupid.

I also agree to not have anymore UI clutter so CD Icons for these traits and actually this signet imo, but what I would like is to remake the traits to not have CD’s since IMO passive skills should not have CD’s.

@ Silver: A timer too se when your minions and other stuff fades? Well that sound bad imo. One of the tricks with playing with minions is to keep an eye on them and controll them with your wits. You know when you activate them and where they are so there is no random events that makes them disappear. Adding more numbers on the UI would make you keep your eye on the UI even more than now and said before about this game is that you are not supposed to play the UI in this game.

@LoreChief – I’m referring to the passive effect cooldown of those skills, not the actual cooldown upon using them. Knowing when you’re about to get aegis from Virtue of Courage or when you’re about to lose a condition via Signet of Resolve would be really useful.
Regarding summons, when you use a spirit weapon, the skill changes to a chain skill but it would be nice to have some kind of indication somewhere that lets you know how much longer the spirit weapon will be alive for so you will have a better idea of when to maximise using the active skill on the spirit weapon. Granted…. spirit weapons are kind of rubbish anyway… but you know what I’m getting at.

Some runes and sigils have internal cooldowns, too. It would be great to know when my runes of rage are ready to proc again or maybe when a sigil of purity will be ready to remove a condition.
It’s all really useful stuff to know.

LoreChief.8391:

1. If anything we need to move away from a trait system that has cooldowns for their effects. At the very least make the cooldowns exist on traits that the player has control over (not the ones that trigger on uncontrolled happen-stance).

I agree that the current skill and trait system must lean towards active play where the idea of ‘risk vs reward’ is highlighted. Probably one of the best utility skills that points this out is frenzy, where you potentially gain a substantial amount of damage at the cost of receiving an equal amount. Passive play does encourage this idea at all because there is little to no skill involved in making decisions while in combat (signets, especially healing signet, Spirits, Minions, etc). However, LoreChief, there is no hope in believing that passive play will be removed from the game given how deep it is enrooted in the game mechanics and thus why I’m promoting a system that will encourage more active play while playing with passive abilities. Knowing when these passive abilities will trigger can allow you to decide which next set of active skills to use in combat.

LoreChief.8391:

2. Any increased amount of UI clutter is to be considered a threat by both ANet as well as the players who like the current UI. The only additions they should be making at this point are for increased weapon skill and utility bars.

I agree with you that anything that is UI-related is taken very seriously by the developers and wish to keep it at a minimum. One of the only combat UI features we have had since release is probably the addition of condition floaters. However, I believe that not having a system as the one suggested is more detrimental to active gameplay experience than the issue of cluttering the UI with additional icons. In all cases, as with the addition of condition floaters, this system should be optional to the player; give players that want to improve their active play with these cooldown timers while giving players that want to keep their UI at a minimum complexity the option to disable this system entirely.

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

I also agree to not have anymore UI clutter so CD Icons for these traits and actually this signet imo, but what I would like is to remake the traits to not have CD’s since IMO passive skills should not have CD’s.

You are correct, it is one of the game’s philosophies to play the game itself and not worry too much on the UI. However, the game contradicts itself with the existence of these passive trait abilities that have hidden timers on them. Give the option to players that want these timers to display them to enhance and improve their gameplay combat skills while giving players that want to keep their UI at a minimum to disable it.