Guild Wars 2

The random nature of Elixirs

Before I say anything further about this topic, I’d like to break it down for you.

Here are some of the Elixirs available to Engineers:

Elixir H: Drink Elixir H to heal yourself and randomly gain protection, regeneration, or swiftness.
Toss Elixir H: Toss Elixir H to randomly grant protection, regeneration, or swiftness to allies.

Elixir B: Drink Elixir B to gain fury, might, retaliation, and swiftness.
Toss Elixir B: Toss Elixir B to grant fury, might, retaliation, or swiftness to allies.

Elixir C: Drink Elixir C, converting all conditions into random boons.
Toss Elixir C: Toss Elixir C, converting one condition to a random boon for allies.

Elixir U: Drink Elixir U, gaining quickness and a random utility skill from another profession.
Toss Elixir U: Toss Elixir U, creating a random spell at the target location.

Toss Elixir S: Toss Elixir S, either making allies grow and grating them stability, or grating them stealth.

Elixir X: Drink Elixir X, becoming a rampaging brute or a whirling tornado. Underwater become either a withering plague or a whirlpool.

Something important worth noting about these abilities with random elements is that they all possess quite heavy cooldowns. They range from about 25 seconds all the way up to 2 minutes.
In a game where there is heavy reliance on the individual’s skill and timing of attacks, not know what will happen when you click a certain button takes away a lot of the required skill to use abilities at the right moments and often leads to frustration.

I believe the intention with these random skills were mostly thematic to the Alchemist-like subclass of the Guild Wars Engineer. While it may seem cool to not know what you’ll get when you drink a mysterious potion with an arbitrary name, it simply adds nothing interesting gameplay-wise, especially with the lengthy cooldowns of these abilities.
Having to decide when to use your 2-minute elite skill should not be an easy choice, but when it comes to Elixir X, there’s just no way to know if what you’ll get will be useful for the particular situation you’re facing. You might become a sturdy, high health, mobile, melee focused brute, or you might turn into a whirling tornado.

Here’s an example of the issues random spells have; Toss Elixir U, which is on a 1 minute cooldown, can either create an impassable wall, a wall that grants stealth, or a smoke screen that blocks projectiles. All serve different purposes and benefit you in different circumstances, but you never know what you’ll get.

All of these abilities can either treated as a gamble, expecting to get what you need, or they can just be used as pointless fillers, hopefully granting you something of use. Either of these are terrible from an e-sports point of view, or any competitive view (PvE too) for that matter.

I must point out that there are instances where random elements are more forgiving and work a lot better.
An example of this would be the Mesmer’s main attack with a Staff. It applies random conditions to enemies and boons to allies. The reason this isn’t as bad as some of the Engineer’s random skills is simply the interval at which this Mesmer ability can be used. Being able to continually cast something you are much less punished for not having luck on your side.
Basically my point here is – If anything random is involved, it should be reusable within a very short timeframe, else the randomness is too punishing.

All of the above listed abilites make up for a significant part of the Engineer arsenal and if this concerns you at all, please make your voice heard.

TL;DR: Randomness has no place in competitive gameplay.

I agree I don’t see the point of it I always find myself begging for it to put down the right one and it almost never does.

I think the random nature of these secondary abilities makes sense. You already have a guaranteed boost from the primary elixir use, knowing what your secondary does every time could be considered overpowered. Imagine knowing that every time you toss Elixir H you will grant a heal, the dynamic of the Engineer would change and people (I know I would) will stack healing traits to double pot during battle.

In regards to the elite skill, while this may seem like a frustrating mechanic, it allows players to develop their play style to include both transformations. This also makes us less predictable from a PvP point of view.

tl;dr the random nature of some of these abilities makes gameplay more interesting (imho) due to the requirement to adapt to what the elixir brings.

The randomness of some elixirs is a little annoying, but in general they are all effects you would want anyway and as it was said above, they are secondary bonus abilities to an already good personal buff. The only one which i think needs a little work is the toolbelt for elixir u. Its variations are too niche and too random to be used with any certainty.

As for the elite skills, the utility of supply crate and mortar are so much greater than any of the other abilities that they are almost useless in anything other than a very specific niche situation.

In some cases I do not mind randomness. Such as with elixir B. Whether I get fury or might is not a huge impact on the game play. Both are dps buffs, and the have roughly the same effect.

But when this randomness is applied to the Elixir U tool belt, the Elixir S tool belt, the Elixir H tool belt, or Elixir X it doesn’t work out as well.

When in a group setting you cannot count on an engineer to bring the utility they spec for. If you bring an engineer for a barrier wall or AoE stability and you get a smoke wall or invisibility instead it doesn’t work out. The group is better off bringing something else to fill that role because those abilities and boons are to vital to group survival to trust to a random mechanic. This is a really limiting factor for engineers and one of the reason many prefer to take guardains and mesmers in their place. They have access to many of the same buffs and utilities, but can guarantee their application. If you want stability, protection, or a reflect wall they can give it on demand, with engineer, well maybe?

The same is true of elixir X to an even greater extent. If you do not know which effect you will get you cannot plan out how to use it ahead of time. You can say to your friends “when they come around the corner I’ll pop this you hit them with that” since you don’t know which abilities your going to get.

Toss Elixir U is frustrating. The random skills simply mean you have to sit there and figure out the one situation that could possibly exist in which each possible result of the skill could benefit one who uses it. Talk about anti-versatility.

Please keep in mind that the randomness come at a increased benefit, elixirs are MORE powerful then other classes equivalents, but the drawback is the random component.

Example, other classes get 4 seconds of swiftness with a set penalty.
Engineer gets 5 seconds of swiftness )or, at least we are supposed to) with a random penalty. Also alchemy traits can make them pretty powerful.

Not saying they are perfect, but just reminding everyone that idea behind the randomness is that we also get stronger benefits.

That’s the point. Remove the randomness and adjust them accordingly. Nerf if need be.

@PokeyPenquin

Its not 5s.

Its 4s. The 5s is a tooltip error. If you count it, its 4s last time I checked.

Furthermore:

I do think some need buffing. Elixir H is a 25s heal with the throw H RNG thing.

Well, I’ll be honest. That is a lot worse than the necros consume conditions which has a huge CONSISTENT utility role and much higher potential healing.

Now, I think that removing all conditions into massive healing>>>>2 random buffs.

Elixir H: Drink Elixir H to heal yourself and randomly gain protection, regeneration, or swiftness.
Toss Elixir H: Toss Elixir H to randomly grant protection, regeneration, or swiftness to allies.
Elixir B: Drink Elixir B to gain fury, might, retaliation, and swiftness.
Toss Elixir B: Toss Elixir B to grant fury, might, retaliation, or swiftness to allies.
Elixir C: Drink Elixir C, converting all conditions into random boons.
Toss Elixir C: Toss Elixir C, converting one condition to a random boon for allies.
Elixir U: Drink Elixir U, gaining quickness and a random utility skill from another profession.
Toss Elixir U: Toss Elixir U, creating a random spell at the target location.
Toss Elixir S: Toss Elixir S, either making allies grow and grating them stability, or grating them stealth.
Elixir X: Drink Elixir X, becoming a rampaging brute or a whirling tornado. Underwater become either a withering plague or a whirlpool.

Here’s how I break it down.

Elixirs B and U… self used for speed buff. Elixir B tossed at myself, or someone around me for a speed buff.

Elixir S to help escape from things, quickly followed by Elixir B for speed buff.

Elixir C to get rid of conditions on myself… If I am not up, I cannot get you up.

Elixir H…. self explanatory. Ok so I get an extra speed buff from time to time. Usually not when I need it, so I never rely on it.

Elixir X- rarely used by me, because if I am in a group setting I concentrate more on AOE, and will usually drop a supply drop so I do not have to slot in the healing turret in number 6.

Now one common theme you will notice in my explanation…. At no time do I rely on the randomness of each elixir. I treat the random boons as just that… serendipity. I never plan my gameplay as an engineer around the “possibility” of getting a boon.

While I am certainly not accusing anyone of doing so, just something to remember as we play engineers.

I would like to note that Toss Elixir U is a great defensive tool. It serves as a good escape tool and can be used offensively to support allies. I see two uses for it. You can either throw it down in front of you or allies in the middle of fights for bonus combos; or, you can throw in front of you while fleeing for a guaranteed fleeing tool. You have one that negates ranged attacks, one that reflects ranged attacks, and another that makes you completely invisible. All excellent escape tools.

Furthermore, I do believe there should be a few changes made to Elixirs.

Elixir H: Drink Elixir H to heal yourself, gaining Protection (5s) and and either Swiftness or Regeneration.
*This will make it so you get guarunteed Protection boon, while Regeneration or Swiftness would be kept randomly.

Throw Elixir S: Toss Elixir S, either making allies grow and granting them Stability if above 50% HP, or granting them Stealth if below 50% HP.
*This way, we can sort of eye what we get with this buff.

Toss Elixir B: Would be best if it applied all the buffs on a 5 second duration.

That’s about it. The randomness of the Elixirs don’t effect my gameplay style beyond the three I mentioned above.

I think that everyone can agree with me when I say that Elixir X doesn’t bring anything other than frustration to the table and is, as a consequence, never used. Every single Engineer I’ve seen in PvP is using Supply Drop ( if that’s its name ).

Wolfheart.1938:

I think that everyone can agree with me when I say that Elixir X doesn’t bring anything other than frustration to the table and is, as a consequence, never used. Every single Engineer I’ve seen in PvP is using Supply Drop ( if that’s its name ).

Stolen from an old post of mine:

I would love to see Elixir X steal other professions’ Elite abilities.

Elixir X:
Drink Elixir X, draining the abilities of your target and gaining an Elite from your target.

Warrior-Same as is
Elementalist-Same as is
Necromancer-Plague Form
Guardian-One of their tomes, prefer the healing one but the DPS one is nice too
Thief-Thieves Guild
Mesmer-Time Warp
Engineer-Supply Crate
Ranger-Rampage as One

So, let’s say you’re fighting some Thief who jumped you. You target him, pop Elixir X, and now Elixir X activates your very own Thieves Guild ability. Or another scenario is that you popped Elixir X on some Mesmer clone, you’ll activate Time Warp at your position. Use Elixir X on another Engineer? Stuns him and enemies around him with Supply Crate.

I like this idea because it keeps the “randomness” of Elixir X, while giving the player pseudo-control of the outcome of his Elite. Running a power build? Find a Warrior and steal his Elite. Condition Build? Necromancer. Need some extra support? Find a Guardian.

Well Aristio, that seems like a mighty fine idea, but how would this work if:
1) I use this ability without a target?
2) I use this ability on a non-profession PVE mob like a Bear or Wolves?

Nice questions, I’ll just answer those now.
1) You will activate any of the 8 abilities, thus loosing your choice in which elite you get.

2) Reverts back to it’s original form of either Brute or Tornado.

So this skill would be a great PVP elite, while keeping the same functionality mostly in PVE.

Elixir U toolbelt is the one that upsets me the most. I want to like it. But I want to have one situation where I can reliable use it. I don’t mind having the combos generated be random and incidental. Two out of three of the effects block projectiles, which is useful. Wall of reflection reflects, smoke screen blocks and has a better combo effect. That’s a reasonable balance. But the veil that grants stealth has totally different uses. Not only can I not use it as protection from projectiles, in order for it do anything useful I have to run through it, which is very contrary to what I want to do in a scenario where I’m trying to protect myself from projectiles. The only time it’s consistently good to toss Elixir U is when I’m being chased by ranged enemies. The best possible use has a 1/3 chance of being something totally different.

If I could use it in a certain situation and be confident it would do something similar no matter what, I’d be happy.

All elixirs generally have a lower cooldown to compensate though. Take for example Elixir X: All other class transformations are on a 3 minute cooldown, Elixir X however is on a 2 minute cooldown. Mix with the additional (consistent) bonus effects and shorter cooldown you can trait them for and they become a lot more useful.

Overall, only the toolbelt skills are really problematic, and yes should have some form of static bonus which doesn’t need to be traited.

i just hating aiming throw elixir, especially underwater. i just spam f1 key and hope it dets on me

As far as I know, in underwater you don’t aim Elixir. When you press F1, the Elixir bottle will float upward. When you press F1 again, it detonates.

Dont change elixer U please. I love placing the random field infront of me, popping the actual elixer and then machine gunning through the field. You either confuse, blind, or remove conditions. I rarely see the benefit from the remove conditions but the confuse or blind is quite useful.

You pretty much know what you’re getting with elixirs when you drink them. The only randomness in elixirs that are drunk is the random boon from H, the random condition from U, and the random effect of X.

If you think about it this way for tossing, you are throwing a chemical concoction on the ground. You have NO IDEA what has been on that ground, so you can’t be certain whether you are going to get one effect or the other.

Think of the randomness of tossed skills like the movies. Some kid or clumsy person knocks over a vial of some strange murky liquid just as a scientist yells out, “DON’T TOUCH THAT!!!”

Queue wacky effect, be it beneficial or harmful.

I think the toolbet elixir tosses are a perfect character addition as well as just the right amount of random buffing. After all, whatever you get from the tossed vial is a buff.

Right?

Not very persuasive Sporadicus. The context of the skills is that it is happening within a game with binary outcomes. You really should be winning or losing depending on how well you used your skills, not how lucky you got with what effect they did when used.

One can write an entire essay using strength in numbers to persuade people that the current randomness of elixirs is acceptable. But it doesn’t change the context in which those skills exist, and it doesn’t change how inappropriate their function is within that context.

The primary context is giving YOU a fixed benefit. Most of the elixirs do that. The tossed effect is a secondary context. It’s a random buff that’s designed to help your fellow players in some minor way.

We’re unique in that we can transfer a little bit of our benefits (elixirs) to others without losing the ability to benefit from them.

In that way, I think that Elixirs (both in tossed and consumed forms) have been created just right.

In the end Anet will change them or not.
I won’t use them if they are not changed.
Not even if every other skill is nerfed to force me to use them.

RNG is such garbage.
Its like all game developers are standing in line, watching one after another fall into the snake pit. Instead of jumping over it, they walk into it aswell.
RNG was removed or atleast diminished in other games for a reason.

Redfeather.6401:

One can write an entire essay using strength in numbers to persuade people that the current randomness of elixirs is acceptable. But it doesn’t change the context in which those skills exist, and it doesn’t change how inappropriate their function is within that context.

On the other hand, there have been essays written on the opposite, why artificial randomness is unacceptable, at least for competitive play. I’ve written one, at least. Randomness is a poor substitute for truly interesting mechanics and serves to cover up bad skill design.

We must, however, think about who ArenaNet is trying to cater to, and why — it may well not benefit them, the game, or even us, if we were to remove artificial randomness, because – imagine a spectator of a match who has minimal knowledge of the metagame. If Guild Wars 2 were to be a game with no artificial randomness but incredible depth, the players’ choices may seem entirely alien to him/her, which can well turn him/her off the competitive aspect of the game; but if Guild Wars 2 were to have somewhat less depth but had things like crits, at least the casual spectator could go “OH LOOK CRITS OH MY GOD”.

Sporadicus.1028

The primary context is giving YOU a fixed benefit. Most of the elixirs do that. The tossed effect is a secondary context. It’s a random buff that’s designed to help your fellow players in some minor way.

The tossed effect (and all belt skills for that matter) should never be balanced as a secondary effect to a primary skill. The intent of the belt skills is to give us extra utilities because we give up a utility slot for any kit we want to equip, our ability to weapon swap, and any other class mechanic. The belt is intended to be extra utilities and should be treated (and balanced) as such. Perhaps the belt skills as a whole should be weaker than slot skills, but they should never be purposefully weak because the slot skill they come with is strong.

A tossed elixir doesn’t even guarantee that you’ll help an ally. Imagine that you notice someone is down and being shot at by the boss from range. As a good player you realize that you “have a skill for that” (that should be the engineer motto by the way) and toss your Elixir U to give your ally a reprieve from the boss’s attacks while you run over to help him. Whoops, too bad! The Elixir U decided to give you the veil that doesn’t block projectiles and your ally goes defeated. As a player, you made a good play, but the game decided that your skill wasn’t valid in that instance. This is terrible design because it leaves the player frustrated, not to mention small things like this can be the difference between winning and losing the boss fight.

Most all elixirs suffer from some form of this problem, some even in multiple ways. Ever noticed an ally dodge twice with low health and still be focused by a veteran, elite, or champion and tossed him an Elixir H that gave regeneration? Ever purposefully drank an Elixir H early for either protection or regeneration only to receive swiftness? Ever been fleeing from a champion and chugged Elixir H for swiftness or protection only to get regeneration? Ever thrown down Elixir U for a combo field to rack up stacks of confusion or blindness on a melee elite or champ only to see Wall of Reflection? Ever seen an ally about to be sent sailing by an AoE and tossed out an Elixir S to give him stability only to see him go flying? Either me, my friends, or my guildies have all been in these situations before in either PvE or PvP. And these are just off the top of my head.

Sporadicus.1028

We’re unique in that we can transfer a little bit of our benefits (elixirs) to others without losing the ability to benefit from them.

This is outright wrong, any class that has an AoE can benefit from the AoE by standing in it. Not to mention that this is basically what the guardian class mechanic is.

Sporadicus.1028

In that way, I think that Elixirs (both in tossed and consumed forms) have been created just right.

They haven’t. In a skill based game, any play that could result in a benefit for your team should result in a benefit for your team, provided it is not counter-played by an opposing team. I’m not saying that elixirs should lose all randomness (I wouldn’t be opposed to this however), what I am saying is that all elixirs should have a clear situation to be used in despite their randomness. The Elixir U slot skill is a good example of this: you don’t use it while you’re being focused or when you know the mob can attack everyone at once; by following this simple rule, you mitigate the risk regardless of the specifics of the penalty.

Gurt.9368:

They haven’t. In a skill based game, any play that could result in a benefit for your team should result in a benefit for your team, provided it is not counter-played by an opposing team.

This is the core issue with randomness – the reward to a play is not proportional to the utility value of a play.

Using Toss Elixir S when you see an ally about to get punted off a cliff has some utility – the sum of the utility of it giving stealth (e.g. no utility) and it giving stability (e.g. 1 utility, as an arbitrary number), or 0.5 (arbitrary) utility value. (Utility such as this certainly cannot be calculated and compared so easily, but the principle stands.) But if you use Toss Elixir S in that situation, you never actually get that 0.5 utility value – you either get a reward above it (stability – 1 utility) or below it (stealth – no utility).

It might be a smaller gap in value – getting Fury might be better than getting Might by a small margin; or it might be a bigger gap – getting Plague underwater on Elixir X as a predominantly Power engineer, for example. Nevertheless – while often useful for making casuals squeal and stay interested with artificial ‘dynamism’, it simply is not useful for competition, whether it be competitive PvE (speed clears, for example) or PvP.

I think it’s important to phrase it like this because it takes sentiment (e.g. ‘getting stealth when you need stability is bullkitten’) out of the way.

—

Additionally, even if the random effects were like you described -

Gurt.9368:

…what I am saying is that all elixirs should have a clear situation to be used in despite their randomness.

- random skills would still be actually more boring in usage than nonrandom skills, simply because nonrandom skills have specific effects that can be applied to specific situations, while random skills can only hope to have high utility in “general” situations.

To use the utility-value idea above – let us take Toss Elixir S again. Toss Elixir S really only has high utility when both the effects are desirable. When Stealth is desirable (e.g. has utility) but Stability is not (has no utility), the overall utility of the skill goes down; the same is true for the reverse. This renders skills with random elements generally caged to vague “general” usages, i.e. “I kind of want to live longer so I pop Elixir H”, over “I will pop Elixir H in anticipation of a spike because it will give me Protection”, etc etc., when more specific usages tend to be interesting (e.g. a clutch Stealth on a stunned ally, etc.)

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Random effects should be limited to maximal 2 different effects… having a elixer with 4 boons you can get kinda ruins any pre-made tactics because it mostly depends on luck. It can hurt the Engineer quite a bit if he gets the wrong boon.
Or like other people said before me… make the effect of an elixer depending on the amount of health you have

for example:
elixer H:
Heal yourself and get a boon depending on the amount of health left
Health above 66% gains Swiftness
Health above 33% gets Protection
Health below 33% gets Regeneration

I disagree that somehow toolbelt skills and utilities are balanced together.

They are entirely separate skills, on different cooldowns, with different uses, applications and are affected by different stats and different traits.

For me, an untraited elixir H thrown, is extremely low on my priority list for ‘things I need to do’, throwing it is a DPS loss since it has a cast time. And when I do throw it, I have no clue what I’ll get: So, where would I ever fit throw elixir H in my rotation and priority list of skills? I have so many other things I could be doing with my skills, swapping through kits, using weapon skills, using consistent toolbelts.

But in the case of throw elixir H, simply because of its RNG nature, it is on the bottom of my list of “things I want to use in combat”.

^

I cant test it right now, but the thing is that i remember that traited elixir dont affect to Tool Bet elixirs, who is terrible to me, like elixir trits dont affet to elixir skills of Elixir gun.

Someone to confirm the traits with toss elixirs?

GonzoNeo.4965:

^

I cant test it right now, but the thing is that i remember that traited elixir dont affect to Tool Bet elixirs, who is terrible to me, like elixir trits dont affet to elixir skills of Elixir gun.

Someone to confirm the traits with toss elixirs?

Elixir traits seem to pick and choose what to affect really.

Like, 20% faster cooldowns affects only utility elixirs, not toolbelts or elixir gun.

And yet, longer lasting elixir trait doesn’t affect all utility elixirs, but some toolbelt elixirs.

Basically: I wouldn’t look into it. Its totally arbitrary and random.

I understand what you are talking about, Gurt. Strategically, randomness shouldn’t be a factor in a game where you are fighting enemies.

Proccing randomness is fine, where you already know there’s a percentage chance of getting a single effect. However, it’s not good to have 2 or 3 random effects (especially so different from each other) when you need a single effect.

Sure, the idea of randomness when thrown lends a whimsical character effect to it, but I now agree that not being able to use the toolbelt elixirs effectively enough to help players or yourself out of jams.

So do would we accept just defense effects being a single nonrandom effect, or do we want both defense and offense to be single and nonrandom?