Would be good to see classes be given moves that stripped boons and did XX% more damage per boon removed. Would be a good addition to the game if done well.
When ever you start meddling with the meta by creating counters to something you end up having to create a counter to the counter. This ends up going in circles; counter to a counter to a counter to a counter.
Blizzard devs understood this at one point and turned away from it because they saw that they would end up changing abilities forever. I’m not a fan of the rock paper scissors approach. I find it uninspiring and uncreative. It spells lazy game design.
I don’t know how to solve this problem, so I’m going to make an ability that counters it. Instead of punishing bad play, they punish builds by making another build counter a build.
Is this something that’s coming?
I personally don’t like it seeing as there are already anti boon skills on other classes, and I’d rather have more single use boon punishment expanded on than continued use since you don’t have the option of tearing down your own boons to react to such abilities.
It’d also be nice if we had some more options for non boon builds before something like that would be suggested.
So they want to punish us for using our only viable build. Guess i have to lvl my warrior then. It’s so nice with the rifle who can one-shot enemies from a safe distanse.
Is this something that’s coming?
I personally don’t like it seeing as there are already anti boon skills on other classes, and I’d rather have more single use boon punishment expanded on than continued use since you don’t have the option of tearing down your own boons to react to such abilities.
It’d also be nice if we had some more options for non boon builds before something like that would be suggested.
Yes there are existing skills and traits that allow for boon removal (Thieves, Necros, Mesmers) but right now, other options for these classes far outshine the build that specializes in boon-removal (burst shatter mes, BS thieves).
I believe the rock-paper-scissor approach the devs are heading to with this future change is a good thing for the meta. However they need to be very careful about it since it may render certain builds to become too powerful or too useless and then we’re back to square one.
“The boss you just killed respawns ten minutes
later. It doesn’t care that I’m there.”
So they want to punish us for using our only viable build. Guess i have to lvl my warrior then. It’s so nice with the rifle who can one-shot enemies from a safe distanse.
They also said that something good is coming for Scepters (multiple target Arc Lightning! Yay! ) and I believe other weapon sets also as well as reworking on the ele traits so there’s a possibility for other builds to become viable for the ele if they get this right. But I might be too hopeful on this, though :/
“The boss you just killed respawns ten minutes
later. It doesn’t care that I’m there.”
There really does need to be more counters to boons, whatever they end up doing. It’s just silly right now with certain builds (not just ele). Boons are so powerful that when you have a build that keeps them up permanently, it kind of trashes the idea of giving something up to gain something.
I’d be fine with the boon hate idea, but only if it went to less popular/powerful builds. If they just tack it on to the builds that are already the most powerful, that’d be dumb. But I can see it as a good way to buff underpowered builds and bring them up to viability. I’m not sure if it’s better than just adding more boon strip abilities, but who knows.
Its actually a pretty good idea that further expands available roles and dynamics in the game beyond, “Dis guy has a lot of boons, we need lotz of dps reall fast to bring him downn” which fails horribly resulting in a tankele dominated meta.
While this does sort of scream hard counter aka. avoid this dude at all costs if you have boons, it just means you’ll have be more aware of your position relative to those you’re fighting and when you’re throwing up your boons. These builds might strong against boon builds but weaker against those who don’t(stacking more damage bonuses against boon stackers=weaker against regular opponents in comparison), so you’ll have to have a balanced team with roles that can neutralize their threat.
Its a good change to balance a lop sided part of the meta.
“Deal extra damage based on the amount of boons currently on your target”
Hate it? Love it? Confused? Stupid? Amazing?
/discuss
Misread your post the first time.
It would be fair to have mechanics like Boon Hate, given how strong boons are and how some classes (e.g. Ele) can keep multiple boons rolling indefinitely, while other classes can not.
First you cannot imply that heavy boon = bunker. Thats definitely not the case. So the proposed trait wouldnt be a counter to bunker builds.
I dont like the idea of a passive counter to a certain playstyle. Counters should be active skills to enforce skillful play.
You have to take into account that many boons are group buffs. So at least for WvW you have multiple boons on every player most of the time, no matter who casts the boon. So in WvW the proposed trait would be less of a counter to boon stacking builds. It would be more of a general damage buff to certain professions.
You also have to take into account that at least elementalist have to rely on boons to survive. Sure boons are powerful, but ele has the lowest HP + the lowest armor of all professions. Giving a passive counter to a whole profession isnt fair.
Its like giving a passive “can see stealthed enemies” as a counter to thieves.
they didn’t say it would be passive. In fact, they mentioned they wanted to give the option to Warriors.
Say their burst skills were given an added function to remove all boons and do an extra +X/Y/Z% damage per boon removed. That’s an activated skill on a cooldown that already don’t get much use.
Same could be done with things like Dragon’s Tooth or Phoenix for example.
I think it’s a great idea as removing boons should be just as (if not more) common as granting them.
Boon hate is interesting, but it would have to be implemented very carefully – it would be counter-intuitive to buff yourself with boons only to have someone deal massive damage to you because of buffs.
Boons are strong atm, but they can easily go from hero to zero if builds can smash through boons. This applies especially to guardians and eles who have a low hp pool partially because of their easy access to boons. I would be more in favor of giving more access to boon stripping instead.
The balance will come where they try to take the edge away from boons and where they render them useless. So anything more than 3% per boon would be too much. The other issue is protection and retaliation. Protection becoming innert would be terrible for us, guardian, and a number of other classses that get it in small amounts here and there. Like I said with thief these changes have to be balanced around the fact that proper burst will still down us boons or not. Retal would have to be the boon that counters this whole mess because if it doesn’t then there is no counter we cant forcibly drop a boon. Honestly there is no counter to this so its a slippery slope. It cant be the you have boons I win button it has to be the you have boons I negate some button.
Boons do need more counters that’s a given but at the same tie they placed so much of our offense and defense on them its ridiculous. The real question is which classes are going to get it, if its a minor trait or regular, and how many points in which line is it going to cost. I would have preferred a 50% chance to remove boon on crit cd 4 secs but whatever.
Kor The Cold Heart War Wrekkes-Engineer Kore Rok Thief-Asraithe-Ele
The reason why StarCraft works with counter’s is because no matter which race you play with; everyone has a counter to everything.
You can’t do that in an MMO without making all the classes the same. Could you imagine if every class in GW2 has a counter to every ability on every class? It would be absurd.
The end result will be rock paper scissors. Warrior beats Rogue, Rogue beats Mage, Mage beats Warrior. I consider this the same as build A counters build B; build B counters build C; build C counters build A.
Why punish builds? Why not punish bad play and reward skilled play?
The reason why StarCraft works with counter’s is because no matter which race you play with; everyone has a counter to everything.
You can’t do that in an MMO without making all the classes the same. Could you imagine if every class in GW2 has a counter to every ability on every class? It would be absurd.
The end result will be rock paper scissors. Warrior beats Rogue, Rogue beats Mage, Mage beats Warrior. I consider this the same as build A counters build B; build B counters build C; build C counters build A.
Why punish builds? Why not punish bad play and reward skilled play?
Your analogy is a bit flawed because each side has units that counter other units in a rock paper scissors style. In a group setting in an MMO, one group is the terran, one group is the zerg, and one group is the protoss and all that matters is the one group has the tools available to fight off both other groups. The way to do this is to spread the utility around some and while this may get in the way of your warrior/rogue/mage model, it doesn’t invalidate it.
Boon-bunker elementalists are currently too strong in pvp, and boon-bunker guardians as well. And mostly because of boons.
The devs will either have to nerf boons directly, or create more viable means to counter them. I agree that more viable counters is what is needed to beat current bunker eles. There should be more anti-boon traitlines, as well.
Why punish builds? Why not punish bad play and reward skilled play?
That’s much easier said than done. That the equivalent of saying why not make this game a FPS (all skill)? There has yet to have been a build where you counter everything one build has. Even with boon hate etc very few classes would be able to keep up with a DD ele. The escapes would skill be there and much like it is now Dodging and spacing are the key to not taking damage. The really issue is burst not balance. Too much burst added in a counter build for boons would not make boons only useless but also a liability.
Long story short skilled players already win most of the time and that is not going to change anytime soon. Saying it should be skilled vs unskilled is pointless as that is the very nature of gaming. Even in games with heavy RPS mechanics (ie DCUO) sometimes scissors beats rock.
Edit:
@DiogoSilva
I don’t necessarily disagree but at the same time a bunker should be a bunker. It should be able to act like a bunker no matter the circumstances. I think the issue is game type caters to this play and few plays are willing to take the steps to counter it. This is all well and good until classes start eating through defenses so fast that your team can’t come back you up.
Kor The Cold Heart War Wrekkes-Engineer Kore Rok Thief-Asraithe-Ele
It is a step in the right direction. This is an effective anti meta that would be both helping thieves out in Pve and change up their annoying pvp play.
Boon Hate idea is not good because it makes boons a negative now. So I can imagine the crap storm a guardian will get for giving people boons etc.
Also if boons are too powerful then fix that don’t add another stupid mechanic to balance. Blizzard learned this lesson after years. It creates a circular bbalancing cycle. Want to nerf add X, Now X is too powerful we need to add Y to fix X. Y made Z too powerful add Q to mix etc.
This. Also a problem – you can’t self-remove boons. So basically, every class has some sort of condition removal mechanism. But now if boons can become a liability, and there is no way to remove them from yourself, it creates an interesting (read, preposterous) situation.
This. Also a problem – you can’t self-remove boons. So basically, every class has some sort of condition removal mechanism. But now if boons can become a liability, and there is no way to remove them from yourself, it creates an interesting (read, preposterous) situation.
Only an issue if the classes given these abilities can take full effect from them. Do you honestly think if a Warrior did more damage with their burst weapons and stripped all your boons you’d be any worse off? You’d just blink away, recast the boons, and go back before the skill came off cooldown.
It all depends on how they’re implemented. If the class has a trait that just makes its attacks do X% more damage for each boon on you it would be asanine. Then how do you improve that other class? Just keep increasing the percentage until the class can effectively kill something? Nah.
If they are attached to weapon attacks on long cooldowns and they actually removed the boons, I think that would be a great way to implement it. Especially if they’re attached to underused skills that already don’t get much use.
For example, attach it to a Warrior’s arcing slice, something they never use that actually has other ramifications when used (your heal will be for less for example).
The reason why StarCraft works with counter’s is because no matter which race you play with; everyone has a counter to everything.
You can’t do that in an MMO without making all the classes the same. Could you imagine if every class in GW2 has a counter to every ability on every class? It would be absurd.
The end result will be rock paper scissors. Warrior beats Rogue, Rogue beats Mage, Mage beats Warrior. I consider this the same as build A counters build B; build B counters build C; build C counters build A.
Why punish builds? Why not punish bad play and reward skilled play?
Your analogy is a bit flawed because each side has units that counter other units in a rock paper scissors style. In a group setting in an MMO, one group is the terran, one group is the zerg, and one group is the protoss and all that matters is the one group has the tools available to fight off both other groups. The way to do this is to spread the utility around some and while this may get in the way of your warrior/rogue/mage model, it doesn’t invalidate it.
So in 5v5 you have units on each team that brings different utilities. Like team fortress, the engineer that builds turrets, the scout that moves fast, the medic that heals, the heavy weapons guy that’s slow and deals a lot of damage blah blah blah.
Boon Hate idea is not good because it makes boons a negative now. So I can imagine the crap storm a guardian will get for giving people boons etc.
Also if boons are too powerful then fix that don’t add another stupid mechanic to balance. Blizzard learned this lesson after years. It creates a circular bbalancing cycle. Want to nerf add X, Now X is too powerful we need to add Y to fix X. Y made Z too powerful add Q to mix etc.
This.
Professions that are currently counted on for group boon application will become hated on for boon application. It’s the stupidest puppy idea I’ve heard the devs throw out yet. It creates a stigma with one of the core mechanics of the game.
I don’t understand the logic of some people. Main mechanics are meant to be countered. Or else we’ll get overpowered, hard-to-counter builds, as it is happening right now.
Boons won’t become a bad thing just because a few builds will be able to counter them. That’s like saying that burst builds suck because bunkers can counter them. Burst builds are still key regardless of the existence of bunkers or not. Boon builds should still be strong against the majority of builds. More so than that, creating an anti-boon build means NOT creating a different kind of build, and for competitive pvp, you only have 5 players per map.
I don’t understand the logic of some people. Main mechanics are meant to be countered. Or else we’ll get overpowered, hard-to-counter builds, as it is happening right now.
Boons won’t become a bad thing just because a few builds will be able to counter them. That’s like saying that burst builds suck because bunkers can counter them. Burst builds are still key regardless of the existence of bunkers or not. Boon builds should still be strong against the majority of builds. More so than that, creating an anti-boon build means NOT creating a different kind of build, and for competitive pvp, you only have 5 players per map.
The problem with boon hate is that it presents a false choice, amplified by the fact that it is very common to provide boons for teammates if they are near you – did you just help them or hurt them? It is more intuitive to provide means to take away an advantage (boon-stripping) than to give a counter to an advantage – what is going to counter that counter? It would become an endless nightmare of counters for counters.
That’s why if boon hate were to be implemented, they have to be very careful how it is accessed or it may create a bigger balance problem. I’m very down with all professions having more boon stripping options though.
The way it was described, the counter to this mechanic of ‘boon hate’ is a boon itself: Protection. Unless this mechanic can muster more than 33% damage (and even if it does) Protection mitigates more damage than it causes.
The way it was described, the counter to this mechanic of ‘boon hate’ is a boon itself: Protection. Unless this mechanic can muster more than 33% damage (and even if it does) Protection mitigates more damage than it causes.
So what’s the big whoop?
If protection were to mitigate the damage of boon hate, then boon hate won’t do its job of softening up bunkers. However they implement it, it can go to either extreme – super powerful or super useless.
Being able to remove protection would make more sense imo. Or have armor reducing/piercing skills.
play necro and tell me what you think of the boon stripping skill
It’s amazingly awesome. I sometimes run a Boon Hate build on my necro. Corrupt Boon, Well of Corruption, OH Focus for Spinal Shivers, trait that boon-strips at 25% life. Guardians melt like hot butter, and some Warrior builds just fold. Elementalists don’t do too bad because they can just cleanse all the conditions off or RTL out of danger. It definitely puts boon dependent builds on the defensive in a hurry.
Corrupt Boon will ruin people’s day. It’s the only utility I try to make room for in every build when I’m in WvW. PvE it’s pretty bad.
You people are blowing this out of proportion. They aren’t going to make it so that a boon hate build insta kills a boon build. They will probably just rehash the 2%/boon/condition trait mechanic. They aren’t going to make it so suddenly any boon is really bad and you don’t want to have it.
Boons are strong, I can see why they want some sort of counter to boons, but I’m not keen on ‘more damage against more boons’.
I’d rather see more effective / accessible ways to convert / remove / steal boons on your target, possibly including specific boons instead of just ‘a boon’. It’s a fine line to walk, and whatever they do, they need to make sure it doesn’t go too far.
Kintari | Rintaki | Rin Taki | Kian Tir | Zahinn | Lith <<< Blackgate >>>
Boons are strong, I can see why they want some sort of counter to boons, but I’m not keen on ‘more damage against more boons’.
I’d rather see more effective / accessible ways to convert / remove / steal boons on your target, possibly including specific boons instead of just ‘a boon’. It’s a fine line to walk, and whatever they do, they need to make sure it doesn’t go too far.
Wait until you play a class that needs those boons in order to make up for the vast difference in health and armor that other classes enjoy.
Dont know what to say. Glass cannon builds without an escape ability or a zerg to hide behind suck. I tried for awhile to run the GC build on an elementalist. It works but a bunker build works so much better. Start screwing with the boons a bunker build relies on it wont be pretty.
I really hope that that +x%/boon does not become something passive and active all the time. I’d like to see that functionality on some skills or – if it has to be – on sigils/traits with on-crit and internal CD.
I can’t wait until ANet releases the game promoted in the manifesto.
Until that, I’ll play GW2.
These builds might strong against boon builds but weaker against those who don’t(stacking more damage bonuses against boon stackers=weaker against regular opponents in comparison), so you’ll have to have a balanced team with roles that can neutralize their threat.
This is exactly what should happen, but I’m sensing that it won’t be the case. Color me pessimist. XD
“The boss you just killed respawns ten minutes
later. It doesn’t care that I’m there.”
I guess I’m a little confused by the entire thing. Rather than making an entirely new mechanic and meta, wouldn’t it be simpler to just re-balance existing boons to bring them in line?
I guess I’m a little confused by the entire thing. Rather than making an entirely new mechanic and meta, wouldn’t it be simpler to just re-balance existing boons to bring them in line?
Boons are not as OP as you think. Boons allow an ele to take on a target, more like a cushion to self than an all out fighter jet attack. Therefore it is balanced.
Fuzzionx[SF]
Guest member of [LOVE]
JQ official Prime Minister
When ever you start meddling with the meta by creating counters to something you end up having to create a counter to the counter. This ends up going in circles; counter to a counter to a counter to a counter.
Blizzard devs understood this at one point and turned away from it because they saw that they would end up changing abilities forever. I’m not a fan of the rock paper scissors approach. I find it uninspiring and uncreative. It spells lazy game design.
I don’t know how to solve this problem, so I’m going to make an ability that counters it. Instead of punishing bad play, they punish builds by making another build counter a build.
Its stupid.
There’s a counter to the counter already. It’s called dodge.
“Deal extra damage based on the amount of boons currently on your target”
A mechanic like this shouldn’t be relevant against a build with a single boon, or a teammate that was granted one or two boons from an ally.
It’s only truly strong against bunkers who can have 4-5 boons at the same time, and for a long duration.
Also, giving all/ most professions boon-stripping mechanics would make them play way too similar to a necro/ mesmer.
I believe it’s just Warriors, Thieves, Mesmers and Necros getting boon hate skills and traits. I don’t believe any other class would make sense.
It makes sense for Warriors, Thieves and Mesmers because they are usually the burst classes and reducing their damage for people without boons and increasing their damage for people with boons, would make a lot of sense.
Mesmers and Necros are fine with boon stripping/ converting/ stealing mechanics. It fits the mesmer’s anti-playstyle flavor and the Necro’s corruption flavor. But for Warriors and Thieves, it makes sense for them get “something different”.
So basically if I play guardian, I have less survivability…even though I am boon-dependent (according to anet), while ele gets boons from traits, now we get penalized from having our own boons or giving boons to players around us.
So I can use my water 25 trait, and get 8 boon on me but while I hit for 2% more(per boon) damage against an enemy for having 8 boons on me, everyone can hit me for the same damage.
That is the death of Dagger/Dagger 0/10/0/30/30 builds.
..and since the staff was nerfed before in all areas (where blasting staff is broken due to target limit)
…Not to mention that some traits only work while actually attuned to that element while all other classes have all traits active without swapping to a mode…
Why do I feel as much as I love Elementalists, that they aren’t treated well and that after this “update” it will be the near-death of the class?
) and I believe other weapon sets also as well as reworking on the ele traits so there’s a possibility for other builds to become viable for the ele if they get this right. But I might be too hopeful on this, though :/
