Guild Wars 2

Dear Anet,

Originally, I was mesmerized by the new proposed Diamond Skin, as is most everybody. Kudos for thinking outside the box on this one and giving Elementalists who want to be resilient an answer to their crippling weakness to condition damage.

As a class that could potentially achieve 4000 armor but who had a super low health pool and not much they could do against conditions, this was a massive problem. Not much point in being resilient if 50% of sPvP damage is unaffected by your armor.

After much consideration and evaluation, I’ve decided that while I’m in favor of the proposed Diamond Skin existing (as opposed to nothing existing), I think that there’s an opportunity for a much, much better (yet less fundamentally interesting) solution.

Diamond Skin should reduce condition duration by 25%, and should stack with Melandru runes for 50% condition duration reduction in sPvP.

Okay, hear me out first:

The current proposal for Diamond Skin is super interesting, but it relies very very heavily on 2 things:

-The Elementalist is going to need a fair amount of passive health regen, possibly from their heal on attack signet and other sources. Otherwise, the condition immunity will go away after a few seconds of combat and even the toughest Elementalist will get chewed up by conditions very quickly.

-The Elementalist is going to need very high toughness in order to not drop below the threshold immediately.

So, we’ve pretty much limited the sustained usefulness of Diamond Skin to ONLY Elementalists who have a major emphasis on Toughness and Healing, although admittedly, anybody can use the trait to negate the first 1-3 condition effects against a condition centric opponent.

I think this could be a problem. In sPvP the only real way to nail this one to maximum effectiveness is with Settlers gear, going into Earth and Water and trying to dish out some condition damage, which is fine, but it’s only viable for a single build. I suspect that condition heavy players are going to be hard countered by this build harder than any build currently counters any other build. I’m not saying that I don’t believe in Rock-Paper-Scissors (I do), I’m just saying in a competitive, skill based environment, Rock should have a 20% advantage over Scissors, not make it impossible for Scissors to use any abilities.

On the flip side of the coin, I don’t think this is going to be especially fun/rewarding for the Elementalists either. They’re going to have to focus all of their resources on Toughness and passive healing methods and trying to keep their health over 90% (there’s talk of 85%), it is going to become the whole of their game. You’ll end up with one very specific type of Elementalist who can utilize this trait to its full potential, and it will be a pretty hair pulling experience to any of their condition centric opponents.

This type of all or nothing trait can be pretty dangerous in both directions. Frustrating for the opponent when it’s working, and frustrating for the Elementalist if they get spiked down below 90% health. Additionally, this trait as proposed is almost entirely useless for team fights, where keeping your health up over 90% is a near impossibility.

Okay, so you’ve heard my big rant. Now the 25% condition reduction alternate proposal? I think it’s much less interesting, admittedly, but much much more practical and healthy for the game. It’s always on, works for multiple types of builds, has practical functionality in team fights, won’t cause condition based opponents to rage quit, won’t cause Elementalists to invest all of their gameplay efforts in staying above a magical threshold, and if Elementalists want to focus on being resilient, then can stack Melandru runes on top and get the extra layer of defense against conditions that they were sorely lacking.

I think it’s easier to implement, more balanced, more versatile, and better for the state of the game.

Thanks for reading.

TL;DR – Proposed changes are very interesting, but a flat 25% condition duration reduction trait is much better and much more practical.

grandmaster traits should change playstyles. a reduction means you still get hit with the starting immob/ condi burst, etc.

I don’t like the idea of “boring but easy to balance” If that was used accross the board we wouldn’t have fun classes like the ele/engi

To summarize OP: QQ I can’t stay above 90% forever, therefore trait is bad. ANet plz fix ele.

No. Just no… the reason for this patch was to stop the pigeonholing of x/x/x/30/30 or some other close variation due to the exact reasons you stated: low hp pool being weak against condi. With a substantial portion of the meta shifting towards condi the game becomes extremely dull and tedious and is what anet wants to move away from. Your suggestion to burn 30 trait point into earth for -25% condi duration only to get hard countered by a lot of players that are already stacking a few sets of 2, +10% condi duration runes (up to +30%) is such a waste that no one would even consider the trait anymore. Even a piece of food! Let me emphasize that in caps. A PIECE OF FOOD entirely scraps the idea of -25%. You might rebuttal saying, “I can use -condi food and runes”, but then you’re right back down to square 1, a low hp pool with far less options to trait into condi removal. This continues in a circle, stack vit to ameliorate the hp problem, and then have little to no dmg and still running into the problem of players stacking imobilize. The current diamond skin anet is offering everyone allows players develop much more damage oriented builds without worrying about having such a low health pool and stray away from this meta.

I believe you understand the concept of this trait being useful above 90% but fail to see that the 10% threshold is there to balance it instead of thinking that you should be immune 100% of the time when juxtaposed with a bit of regen and toughness. The enemy will still burn their cds on you and waste a large portion of their skills in order to chain skills only to be null and get nothing out of it; the trait already serves its purpose just by blocking a lot of players initial skills.

TL;DR: your suggestion is bad and you should feel bad

I do agree when I first saw this skill I actually smiled for a moment. If I could tho I would like to add 1 additional effect if they are gonna keep it at only 90%. I would like to also gain retaliation when brought down below 90% the traditional 6 seconds that alot of elementalist skill follow is fine.

Actualy what is the meaning of Diamond Skin, you have to go 30 to Earth, to stay on %90 (%85 what ever) HP for that you have to go heavy to Water , which also dictates another 30 to water so a 10 left to distribute.

You can only be a condition resistant Bunker with it and actually I have no idea what happens to your Boons when you have Diamond Skin, are they corruptible, you loose the Boons but don’t get conditions, Boons are not corruptible?

Am I so excited to be a Condition Resistant Bunker? I am not sure, but there some must be people who like to play that way.

Again, I’m super on board with it as an interesting skill. I was excited about it too. It just seems cool. But I think that’s going to wear off really quick when Elementalists experience exactly how narrow this trait is. It can only have continued functionality for a very, very specific build, and then only in small scale skirmishes, mostly duels.

Any kind of group fight and this thing goes out the window pretty quick. You probably won’t notice having it. That’s my concern. Functionality seems important, but maybe that’s just me. Anyway, whatever. I guess it’ll will be fun to play with that one specific build in 1v1s so…let’s look forward to that.

Oh, the other thing that I want to point out is that this is such an “all or nothing playstyle”, that if you’re really trying to milk it, you’re better off NOT taking traits or abilities that remove conditions, because you should only need to remove conditions if you’ve already failed at your alpha priority of keeping your health topped off. Like, you’d never take Cleansing Water or Cleansing Fire with this build, because you’d only have to use them if your primarily line of defense had gone out the window anyway. You’re better off taking skills with protection and temporary damage immunity.

So to me, it seems like you have to throw out some forms of condition protection because they have no synergy with this new form of condition protection. Anyway, just something that seemed a little rough to me.

the devs want this trait to be versatile, and it WILL be versatile, imagine this- Youre a full glass s/d ele and you ahve 30 air 30 earth. you have diamond skin. for your opener, NO WEAKNESS, NO BLIND, NO IMMOB/crip/chill!!!!!!! thats amazing! the -25% would not make this happen!

The Game Slayer.7632:

the devs want this trait to be versatile, and it WILL be versatile, imagine this- Youre a full glass s/d ele and you ahve 30 air 30 earth. you have diamond skin. for your opener, NO WEAKNESS, NO BLIND, NO IMMOB/crip/chill!!!!!!! thats amazing! the -25% would not make this happen!

1 stray arrow/projectile or melee auto and this 30 point trait becomes 100% useless.

It will be OP vs condi specs and totally useless in any engagement of 3+.

IMO terribly designed trait.