Guild Wars 2

Eles and engis have both a trait that makes them immune to condition if a certain health threshold is satisfied. Whether this is op or not doesnt really matter. But what matters it is not good game design. So i propose to change it, in such a way that those traits instead remove all conditions and give for a short time simple immunity to conditions (similer to Berzerker stance from a warrior). Ofc the traits would then need a cd for a proper balance. This would allow condition builds to have a counterplay by simple waiting (if they can survive long enough).

This is not my idea but Teldos, when talked about AR in his stream. But i liked the idea so i thought maybe putting it in the forums would help.

Nice idea. My problem with these traits has always been how they don’t add much to active/reactive play. It’s just passive immunity… ZZZzzzz….

They are build-defining grandmaster traits. I would say they do that work quite well.
And as far as engineers go, saying it doesn’t add much to passive/reactive play is terribly wrong – staying below 25% hp as much as possible isn’t exactly a breeze (and you’re an easy prey for a power build while doing that, anyway).

Main ele, second alt engineer. And I agree with this, these traits really badly designed. There are very few games in which rock/paper/scissors style balancing works, and GW2 is certainly not one of them.

Both traits are designed badly and offer a very binary gameplay that’s boring. But the engineer trait is completely OP giving them immunity when they really need it, shortly before dying. The Ele trait on the other hand is completely useless.

What I want for diamond skin personally:
Diamond skin: Gain immunity to specific conditions based on your current attunement
Fire: Burning, Cripple
Water: Vulnerability, Chill
Air: Blind, Weakness
Earth: Immobilize, Bleed

Or something along those lines.

If you cannot damage an Elementalist 1k – 2k damage, you deserve to lose.

Please note, if the Elementalist goes 30 in Earth to get this, they sacrifice all damage, healing power and/or evasive arcana.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

What I want for diamond skin personally:
Diamond skin: Gain immunity to specific conditions based on your current attunement
Fire: Burning, Cripple
Water: Vulnerability, Chill
Air: Blind, Weakness
Earth: Immobilize, Bleed

Or something along those lines.

I think this would be cool, it requires active play and calculated use of your attunements, as well as your opponents use of his or her conditions.

However, just that isn’t really worth a grandmaster trait slot; as it is in a tree that gives you no attunement CD bonuses, and other trees allow you to clear all conditions upon attunement, meaning it would be redundant in certain builds.

But, what if we combined it with another trait to represent the condi side of the tanky/condi earth attunement? Like Strength of Stone for example.

I agree that AR needs a change. Can´t tell much about diamond skin… until now I only met one Ele with diamond skin who was actually somewhat hard to kill.
Generally I don´t like the idea of having immunity at all…

Instead of Immunity on AR I´d like to see some more condiremoval. Maybe something like: “Some Elixir-Gun skills are now actually elixirs and work with Formula 409, etc”
or “Gadgets remove 2 conditions upon use” (Engineers really need more gadget traits)
or “Conditions now only have half duration. The effect triggers below 50% health”.

Otaur.9268:

If you cannot damage an Elementalist 1k – 2k damage, you deserve to lose.

Please note, if the Elementalist goes 30 in Earth to get this, they sacrifice all damage, healing power and/or evasive arcana.

This.

As an Elementalist, trust me, it doesn’t take long for this immunity to ware down. After the first few attacks most Elementalists will be below threshold and susceptible to conditions again. As Otaur said above, if you can’t do 1k – 2k damage, chances are you won’t be winning anyway.

Slushey.8236:

Otaur.9268:

If you cannot damage an Elementalist 1k – 2k damage, you deserve to lose.

Please note, if the Elementalist goes 30 in Earth to get this, they sacrifice all damage, healing power and/or evasive arcana.

This.

As an Elementalist, trust me, it doesn’t take long for this immunity to ware down. After the first few attacks most Elementalists will be below threshold and susceptible to conditions again. As Otaur said above, if you can’t do 1k – 2k damage, chances are you won’t be winning anyway.

Dealing that much damage isn’t difficult, even in a condition build. Keeping them from healing it all back as fast or faster than you can deal it is, especially since they can’t be poisoned for that healing debuff.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Slushey.8236:

Otaur.9268:

If you cannot damage an Elementalist 1k – 2k damage, you deserve to lose.

Please note, if the Elementalist goes 30 in Earth to get this, they sacrifice all damage, healing power and/or evasive arcana.

This.

As an Elementalist, trust me, it doesn’t take long for this immunity to ware down. After the first few attacks most Elementalists will be below threshold and susceptible to conditions again. As Otaur said above, if you can’t do 1k – 2k damage, chances are you won’t be winning anyway.

Dealing that much damage isn’t difficult, even in a condition build. Keeping them from healing it all back as fast or faster than you can deal it is, especially since they can’t be poisoned for that healing debuff.

If that ele has enough heals and +healing power to quickly heal to over 90% again then he won’t do any damage, especially because he already wasted 30 traits in earth. And if he didn’t spec for healing besides diamond skin he won’t do any noteworthy damage either and won’t be able to heal up quickly after falling below the threshold.

LelouchViBritannia.3607:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Slushey.8236:

Otaur.9268:

If you cannot damage an Elementalist 1k – 2k damage, you deserve to lose.

Please note, if the Elementalist goes 30 in Earth to get this, they sacrifice all damage, healing power and/or evasive arcana.

This.

As an Elementalist, trust me, it doesn’t take long for this immunity to ware down. After the first few attacks most Elementalists will be below threshold and susceptible to conditions again. As Otaur said above, if you can’t do 1k – 2k damage, chances are you won’t be winning anyway.

Dealing that much damage isn’t difficult, even in a condition build. Keeping them from healing it all back as fast or faster than you can deal it is, especially since they can’t be poisoned for that healing debuff.

If that ele has enough heals and +healing power to quickly heal to over 90% again then he won’t do any damage, especially because he already wasted 30 traits in earth. And if he didn’t spec for healing besides diamond skin he won’t do any noteworthy damage either and won’t be able to heal up quickly after falling below the threshold.

Correct, which makes it a static situation that goes absolutely nowhere because neither party can actually do anything to the other. What’s even worse is that it is limited solely to only working against one or two builds and is a wasted trait for all other opponents. The trait is hugely binary and is horrid design. At least AR, the engineer can’t out-heal the incoming damage if he wants to keep the immunity, which makes it slightly better designed (still not a good solution, though).

BTW, the 200 healing power from 20 points in water magic is enough with Signet of Restoration (and auto-attacking) and the water attunement regen to out-heal a Carrion condition necro’s direct damage. It really doesn’t take much.

Otaur.9268:

If you cannot damage an Elementalist 1k – 2k damage, you deserve to lose.

Please note, if the Elementalist goes 30 in Earth to get this, they sacrifice all damage, healing power and/or evasive arcana.

Actually i play power necro so i dont care at all about those traits, but i think its bad for the game to have such hard counters against condition builds.

Muchacho.2390:

Otaur.9268:

If you cannot damage an Elementalist 1k – 2k damage, you deserve to lose.

Please note, if the Elementalist goes 30 in Earth to get this, they sacrifice all damage, healing power and/or evasive arcana.

Actually i play power necro so i dont care at all about those traits, but i think its bad for the game to have such hard counters against condition builds.

Then as a power necro you should realize that the engineer can disadvantage themselves by taking AR if they’re against a power based opponent. The trait then virtually becomes useless and they could’ve slotted something more helpful.

This also forces the engineer into an odd position where healing themselves could potentially be counterproductive if it causes them to take on a large amount of damaging conditions, which AR cannot remove, meaning they may have to straddle a precarious 25% threshold that leaves them open to any d/d thief that knows how to press a few buttons.

It can be a powerful trait, but it’s situational dependency means it’s not a silver bullet/must have.

The other solution is simply to hybridize your damage or swap your weapon choice. A lot of people seem to dump everything into either condition damage or direct damage, but gear sets like carrion or rampager will allow you to still keep damage pressure on an opponent with AR since those have a power bonus in addition to condition damage. I’ve seen a video of someone complaining about AR, but it was a necro in full rabid gear hitting the engg with a scepter. A power based axe or dagger necro would’ve had no trouble in destroying him, most likely.

The funny thing about AR is that its function has not received any major revisions since release, but people have only started calling for nerfs on it after the updates back around June that brought condition damage based builds to the forefront. The only reason it’s seen as a “problem” is that it never used to counter the super glassy berserker builds that were around earlier, but all the condi builds that dump their eggs in one basket suddenly found a problem.

As far as diamond skin on an ele, this is even more easy to counter than AR as you simply have to do some form of direct damage to them. That means not blowing all your fears, burning, and whatnot on the initial engagement.

These traits need a length and an ICD.

As an Engineer I can say it is our best weapon against a necro. Have have already a really hard time against condi necros. If you nerfed this skill we lose 10 of 10 fights against a necro.

I just love killing ele’s and engi’s with my rapid/dire/fear necro. They die whatever they do because condi spamming is too high.

Otaur.9268:

If you cannot damage an Elementalist 1k – 2k damage, you deserve to lose.

Please note, if the Elementalist goes 30 in Earth to get this, they sacrifice all damage, healing power and/or evasive arcana.

So we’re ignoring Trait Stone Splinters (10% within 600 range), Strength of Stone (10% of tough->cond), Enduring Damage (+10% when endurance full, minor) and the +300 cond damage for going into in the earth line now?

Lupanic.6502:

As an Engineer I can say it is our best weapon against a necro. Have have already a really hard time against condi necros. If you nerfed this skill we lose 10 of 10 fights against a necro.

1v1 it’s very hard, but not impossible. Eng has loads of CC which necro is poor against. If you can manage to lock him down and blind/dodge the cond transfer/damage you can do it (NOT easy).

Full passive immunity is a bad way to design a trait to help with cond damage however. I’m in no way saying just remove the thing and don’t replace it with something else that helps Vs. conds… it should… and it should be strong… but it should have more active play to it.

^maybe remove a condition when you block an attack?

just play man mode bro … stop using your girly builds – bunker condi

ever heard this ? Go glass or Go home.

Liza.2758:

just play man mode bro … stop using your girly builds – bunker condi

ever heard this ? Go glass or Go home.

Not everyone is a zergling… despite what you may see in T1.

I’ve fallen in love with AED but if you’re waiting till you’re low enough to make proper use of the heal you can find yourself in a spot of trouble. While you’re health is low enough to utilize AED’s functionality you’re extremely vulnerable almost any direct damage and any conditions that are on you are eating you up faster than it takes to use AED.

Traiting for Automated Response ensures you don’t bleed out or poison to death when you put yourself into position for a tactical heal.

In the same trait line, Self-Regulating Defenses lets you know once your shrink is over you should hit your AED. The Elixir S gives you a moment to collect yourself and prepare the AED while hopefully putting a finishing blow from an opponent on cooldown.

Both these traits are in the same trait line and together make AED a viable heal option. With out them you’re hugging the line too often and due to cast time end up dead before you even get a chance for a proper heal. We need it and it works. (at least for engies)

Aberrant.6749:

Otaur.9268:

If you cannot damage an Elementalist 1k – 2k damage, you deserve to lose.

Please note, if the Elementalist goes 30 in Earth to get this, they sacrifice all damage, healing power and/or evasive arcana.

So we’re ignoring Trait Stone Splinters (10% within 600 range), Strength of Stone (10% of tough->cond), Enduring Damage (+10% when endurance full, minor) and the +300 cond damage for going into in the earth line now?

Lupanic.6502:

As an Engineer I can say it is our best weapon against a necro. Have have already a really hard time against condi necros. If you nerfed this skill we lose 10 of 10 fights against a necro.

1v1 it’s very hard, but not impossible. Eng has loads of CC which necro is poor against. If you can manage to lock him down and blind/dodge the cond transfer/damage you can do it (NOT easy).

Full passive immunity is a bad way to design a trait to help with cond damage however. I’m in no way saying just remove the thing and don’t replace it with something else that helps Vs. conds… it should… and it should be strong… but it should have more active play to it.

Lol a condition Elementalist is the easiest thing to kill. We have very few conditions and even harder time applying them. By going 30 in Earth our Health pool is about 10k – 12k, and we almost never have full endurance. 10% damage, big freaking whoop. Instead of doing 300 damage they now do 330. Congrats.

Throw on Necro new Signet of Vampirism and watch that 300 life regen each hit the Ele does to you.

Engineers already have relatively miserable condition cleanse so for a build to do condition damage almost exclusively might be stopped by this trait, but it is by no means easy to spec into and doesn’t allow for amazing sustained survivability since it procs at 25% health.

Otaur.9268:

Lol a condition Elementalist is the easiest thing to kill. We have very few conditions and even harder time applying them. By going 30 in Earth our Health pool is about 10k – 12k, and we almost never have full endurance. 10% damage, big freaking whoop. Instead of doing 300 damage they now do 330. Congrats.

Throw on Necro new Signet of Vampirism and watch that 300 life regen each hit the Ele does to you.

How many conds you have/how easy they are to apply depends on what weaponset you’re using. Ele is pretty split direct & cond. It might favor direct with a weapon, but they aren’t wasted stat points just as power isn’t wasted in a set that favors conditions but has power as well.

10% is a lot if you’re hitting for a lot, a little if you’re hitting for a little. Math/percents are funny like that.

My point was that no, eles do not give up all damage by going into that tree like the poster who I quoted stated.

Stillshade.7634:

Engineers already have relatively miserable condition cleanse so for a build to do condition damage almost exclusively might be stopped by this trait, but it is by no means easy to spec into and doesn’t allow for amazing sustained survivability since it procs at 25% health.

Doesn’t mean it’s well designed. There should be more player involvement than hey I took this trait and you’re specced mostly for conds, gg I can keep myself alive 1v1 forever (it’s not like eng can’t sustain itself vs light direct damage with just EG + regenerating mist while staying below 25%) while the trait passively does the vast majority of the work.

I totally agree that eng needs to have the cond removal more spread out though. IMO it’s this trait that’s holding that back from happening.

^the thing is, it does require active play.

whether it could be done better mechanic wise is another, but believe me its not passive if you actually want to get some use of it.

I’ve honestly never used it outside of a bunker build and it really does help survivability but I have never used it in 1v1 and wouldn’t think it would be easy to use aggressively at low health.

Immunities should only apply to dps conditions.

For those such an effect is justified completely.

Also, can we make a forum rule to never discuss DS ele, ever? Otherwise I’m going to start discussing balancing on other games here.

Cuz they’re.. err.. upsetting..

miriforst.1290:

^the thing is, it does require active play.

whether it could be done better mechanic wise is another, but believe me its not passive if you actually want to get some use of it.

Depends on how heavy cond they are… you might be able to just have that and backpack regen (totally passive) and be totally fine. There isn’t enough play/counter play to these traits.

Stillshade.7634:

Engineers already have relatively miserable condition cleanse so for a build to do condition damage almost exclusively might be stopped by this trait, but it is by no means easy to spec into and doesn’t allow for amazing sustained survivability since it procs at 25% health.

The problem is it not only completely invalidates condition-only specs, it also neuters other bunker specs. Eles for example rely about 50/50 on power damage and condition damage (mostly burning) to kill people in a bunker spec. Now 50% of that damage is gone. And there is no way to kill that engi because he simply outheals your power damage.

the only way for that trait to be overpowered as people say would be if there was a gear set that gave Vit Healing power and toughness and said gear does not exist

25% hp in an engi and maybe ele without hp gear is nothing but a mere 3-4k hp
and the trait effect t=does not remove conditions already applied if anything only the ele trait is actually useful as its at 90% hp slap some celestial gear and you’re good to go

i still say its a l2p issue if you guys cant work around these traits since i had no issues killing either playing as bunker

I would much prefer another source of condition removal over this trait.

Muchacho.2390:

Eles and engis have both a trait that makes them immune to condition if a certain health threshold is satisfied. Whether this is op or not doesnt really matter. But what matters it is not good game design.

This is what the thread is about. Not about whether the current Diamond Skin is OP or not, whether it can be worked around, whether its a l2p issue etc etc etc. Y’all stupid.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

What I want for diamond skin personally:
Diamond skin: Gain immunity to specific conditions based on your current attunement
Fire: Burning, Cripple
Water: Vulnerability, Chill
Air: Blind, Weakness
Earth: Immobilize, Bleed

Or something along those lines.

Very cool idea, still a strong trait and not as polarizing as immunity to all conditions.

I think the majority of Eles are united under the banner “Diamond Skin ain’t really worth it for the most part”

Arlette.9684:

I think the majority of Eles are united under the banner “Diamond Skin ain’t really worth it for the most part”

Pretty sure everyone is under the banner “Diamond Skin is not good for the game right now.” Either too useless or too powerful with nothing in between.

I run both ele and engineer roaming in wvw. I pretty much never use AR on the engi, and while I’m 30 points into earth magic on my ele, I don’t use diamond skin. For what it is worth, I feel that there are better traits in the master/adept tier.

The argument about losing healing power to get diamond skin doesn’t seem fully thought out to me. Until an ele has about 2900 armor, I’d always take more toughness over more healing power. It is a heal for more versus make your current healing more effective tradeoff. In other words, reduce damage by X% from all direct damage sources versus increase healing by maybe 50 hp/sec from one source.

A more logical argument would be giving up the vitality or boon duration for diamond skin. A well thought out build will compensate with armor choices however.

LelouchViBritannia.3607:

Stillshade.7634:

Engineers already have relatively miserable condition cleanse so for a build to do condition damage almost exclusively might be stopped by this trait, but it is by no means easy to spec into and doesn’t allow for amazing sustained survivability since it procs at 25% health.

The problem is it not only completely invalidates condition-only specs, it also neuters other bunker specs. Eles for example rely about 50/50 on power damage and condition damage (mostly burning) to kill people in a bunker spec. Now 50% of that damage is gone. And there is no way to kill that engi because he simply outheals your power damage.

Assuming this is true, so what? Someone with that sort of engg build will likely have fairly low damage output, meaning they won’t be able to kill you either unless you have no sustain whatsoever. That means you can just ignore them. If it’s in WvW, they likely won’t be doing to much stuff that’s useful, and if it’s in PvP you can just let them rot on a node bunkering while you 5v4 the rest of the team to maintain control of the other 2 points (or back cap it if they run off).

Additionally, it won’t remove conditions that were already on the engineer before the health threshold, and engg doesn’t have a lot of options for mass condi removal (elixir C is really the only one). So it is still quite possible to be condi bombed with AR.