Guild Wars 2

I don’t know if I’m missing something terribly obvious here, but…

I made myself an Elementalist and went off to the Mists to see if I could make the Elementalist work in a way I’d find enjoyable. All it did was make me even more confused.

Attunement recharge with 0 points into the Arcana tree gives 0 increased attunement recharge rate (thank you, Captain Obvious!), and leaves you with a recharge of about 15 seconds on an attunement when you swap.

Each point into the Arcana tree gives +2% recharge rate. At 60% cooldown reduction (30 points into the tree), that means attunements should have a recharge time of 15*.4 = 6 seconds, right?

So why does it take 9 seconds to recharge an attunement with 30 points into the Arcana tree? Is this intentional? Heck, to think of it another way, every 5 points into the tree should take off another ~1.5 seconds from the recharge time (10% of ~15 second base recharge time for the math impaired). Instead, you only get 1 second off.

The only thing I can think of is that it literally means the rate of recharge is sped up by 60%. Meaning, if at 100% recharge rate (0 points into Arcana) you are recharging at a rate of… 1 second “worth” per 1 second, then at 160% recharge rate (30 points into Arcana), you are now recharging 1.6 seconds “worth” per 1 second. In other words, it takes 9.375 seconds with 30 Arcana to recharge the same “amount” as it takes 0 Arcana to in 15 seconds.

If so, this is just kitten backwards. That’d make it inconsistent with the way virtually everything else is done and needlessly complicated.

Someone please tell me that I derped hard somewhere and missed something really obvious.

this is one of the utterly massive design flaws everyone complains about

the arcana tree has 1 mandatory trait and around 20 points within the tree is also mandatory for cool-down reduction if you want to play your class well

Can anyone confirm how this works? I would think that this is a pretty big deal, given that, you know, this is sort of a core mechanic for the Elementalist and a lot of stuff revolves around switching back and forth constantly.

Oh dear, I totally screwed the previous post, and now I can´t even edit it

I meant that the final CD is counted not like 15 – (0,6 * 15), but just like 15 * 0,6
Which is obviously wrong…

edit: previous post deleted

Guys, something has come to my mind now

It´s Attunement recharge RATE (rate word is important in this)
If you want to have rate, you must calculate the amount of uses per some time period (ussually 1 minute).
So, we have 15 sec CD, that means 4 attunement switches per minute.
+60% att recharge rate = 4 * 1,6 which is 6,4
Now divide a minute with 6,4 and you get 9,375 sec CD.
Is it possible to be calculated this way? It feels kinda complicated, but it fits….

omgwtflolbbl.7142:

Can anyone confirm how this works? I would think that this is a pretty big deal, given that, you know, this is sort of a core mechanic for the Elementalist and a lot of stuff revolves around switching back and forth constantly.

As strange and needlessly complicated as it is I think you’re right, because with your math 20 points would put you at 10-11 seconds recharge which is about where I am 20 points in.

Leiloni.7951:

As strange and needlessly complicated as it is I think you’re right, because with your math 20 points would put you at 10-11 seconds recharge which is about where I am 20 points in.

Basically, it´s a good looking way how to satisfy ppl.
“Oh look, we have a nice 60% attunement CD boost” but the reality kinda differs when you calculate it

STRanger.5120:

Guys, something has come to my mind now

It´s Attunement recharge RATE (rate word is important in this)
If you want to have rate, you must calculate the amount of uses per some time period (ussually 1 minute).
So, we have 15 sec CD, that means 4 attunement switches per minute.
+60% att recharge rate = 4 * 1,6 which is 6,4
Now divide a minute with 6,4 and you get 9,375 sec CD.
Is it possible to be calculated this way? It feels kinda complicated, but it fits….

Yes or you could just do 15/1.6 and get the same thing. Or for me at 20 points in your math would be 4*1.4=5.6 then 60/5.6=10.714. But 15/1.4 also gets me 10.714 and is a lot simpler. I think the latter is what the OP was referring to.

Leiloni.7951:

Yes or you could just do 15/1.6 and get the same thing. Or for me at 20 points in your math would be 4*1.4=5.6 then 60/5.6=10.714. But 15/1.4 also gets me 10.714 and is a lot simpler. I think the latter is what the OP was referring to.

Of course it can be calculated in a simplier way, I just wanted to describe the way how I came to that conclusion, so anyone will understand that
But you´re right, simply dividing is faster

edit: correction

If it’s working as intended, that’s pretty dumb. I can’t think of any other cooldown mechanics that work like this in the game. It’s also quite misleading. A lot of people I talked to yesterday thought the base attunement recharge time was 20 seconds because of this when it’s actually 15.

This actually makes a pretty big difference and it doesn’t make any sense that this single recharge/cooldown mechanic follows a different formula than every single other thing in the game. I’d really like some official confirmation that this is either bugged or working as intended.

It’s just dividing by 1+Arcane bonus.

This is basically faster rate of change, like if your water faucet put out 100% more water it would fill a bucket in half the time, not instantly.

EatThisShoe.5136:

It’s just dividing by 1+Arcane bonus.

This is basically faster rate of change, like if your water faucet put out 100% more water it would fill a bucket in half the time, not instantly.

That’s what I have in the later part of my first post. I don’t have any trouble understanding how the math works, I was just confused as to if they were doing it this way and why. It’s counter-intuitive IMO to have your 20% recharge traits actually reduce recharge times by 20%, then have this use a different calculation. I would understand using this kind of calculation more if we had some kind of visible metered system other than just time (ex. some other resource like energy/stamina).

I tested the Engineer and the Guardian out in the mists. Apparently this is how it functions for their F key skills, too.

omgwtflolbbl.7142:

If it’s working as intended, that’s pretty dumb. I can’t think of any other cooldown mechanics that work like this in the game. It’s also quite misleading. A lot of people I talked to yesterday thought the base attunement recharge time was 20 seconds because of this when it’s actually 15.

This actually makes a pretty big difference and it doesn’t make any sense that this single recharge/cooldown mechanic follows a different formula than every single other thing in the game. I’d really like some official confirmation that this is either bugged or working as intended.

I’m pretty certain that’s how chilled works, by decreasing the rate at which skills cooldown. So like, tenths of a second of cooldown actually take two tenths of a second to pass (as a hypothetical example). The rate at which it cools down has been decreased. I think it’s the same idea here.

omgwtflolbbl.7142:

EatThisShoe.5136:

It’s just dividing by 1+Arcane bonus.

This is basically faster rate of change, like if your water faucet put out 100% more water it would fill a bucket in half the time, not instantly.

That’s what I have in the later part of my first post. I don’t have any trouble understanding how the math works, I was just confused as to if they were doing it this way and why. It’s counter-intuitive IMO to have your 20% recharge traits actually reduce recharge times by 20%, then have this use a different calculation. I would understand using this kind of calculation more if we had some kind of visible metered system other than just time (ex. some other resource like energy/stamina).

I tested the Engineer and the Guardian out in the mists. Apparently this is how it functions for their F key skills, too.

It’s a pretty common practice in MMOs. I don’t think it’s especially chosen for intelligence, but it just scales better. For example if they wanted to later add intelligence on Runes or gear, or new traits, and achieve 70%. The difference between 60% and 70% cooldown reduction starts to get rather large if you are just multiplying. The closer you get to 100% the more the scaling gets out of hand, and thus especially for linear gains like trait stat points it becomes necessary to go all in just so you can spam Static Discharge and Healing Ripple on 2s cooldowns. With the divide by 1+x model you can even go over 100% and the last 90-100% doesn’t make an enormous difference compared to the first 0-10%.

It´s propably from when the mechanics might have been different, for example if there was other sources of attunements recharge, in which case it would´ve given more room to fiddle with numbers to do it the way it is now.