Guild Wars 2

We all know that about a month ago ANet fudged something and made it so that pets, illusions, etc. were viable targets for bouncing effects – previously these effects ignored them. If you threw a mirror blade from too far away at a single target it would hit once and stop, even if you had a clone or berserker beside it.

However, the bouncing had no priority other than closest target, which resulted in a dramatic decrease in our effectiveness since we had Mirror Blade and Winds of Chaos bounces being wasted on clones when there were better viable targets around.

The good news is that while some of you did notice that they fixed this today and wrote it off as “just a bug fix” you missed that they left in the ability for these bounces to hit Illusions, though they’ll now only do it as a last resort.

This is quite a nice buff to Staff and Greatsword since it allows us to maintain 1,200 range and still bounce our skills off of an enemy, to a clone, then back to an enemy (though you need elasticity for Staff). I always thought it silly that GS#1 required I be >900 units away for max damage, yet GS#2 required I be <600. At least now I can throw out a berserker and have him assist with the bounces.

We got some crappy changes today, but this is definitely an improvement worth noting.

i just watched my staff 1 bounce from the enemy mob to a non-activated dragon hologram object…..i was about the same distance away from the mob as the object.

is this actually fixed?

Relshdan.6854:

i just watched my staff 1 bounce from the enemy mob to a non-activated dragon hologram object…..i was about the same distance away from the mob as the object.

is this actually fixed?

In my experience, non living things have always been wonky with bouncing. I did test out mirror blade earlier though, and when I was in range, I did get the 6 stacks of might.

I did some testing on bounce logic today, just for funzies. Here’s what I found:

Bounces that have the option of going to a foe or an human ally do not prefer one of the other and will bounce to the closest human ally or foe. This will always be the preferred bounce logic as long as there is a viable bounce target in range.

Bounces can still go to non-aggroed creatures if they’re within the bounce range as they seem to be considered hostile creatures for all intensive porpoises… uhh… intents and purposes.

Bounces can be intercepted by illusions. That means that if there is an illusion between the initial target and the closest eligible bounce target the bounce will hit the illusion on its way to the next target and stop.

Finally, if there is no eligible enemy or friendly player in range for the bounce, the bounce will bounce off of a clone instead. This seems to always have the lowest priority.

I enjoyed being able to zerker+mirror blade from a distance today. It sucks that Might doesn’t do anything for Illusions (or so I’m told) but its better than just losing the extra enemy bounces.

It seems interesting now because while it can hit Illusions, it won’t if a player is nearby. Exactly what I wanted! :O

Palu.3405:

Bounces can still go to non-aggroed creatures if they’re within the bounce range as they seem to be considered hostile creatures

Unfortunately, that includes critters. Since I doubt that this is intended behaviour when I’m also in range, I filed a bug for that:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Mirror-Blade-still-bounces-off-Critters/first#post2283435
I’ll probably regret this when they again break more stuff than they fix, but if they try to fix it anyway, they should at least do it properly.

Bouncing logic of iMage is somehow different …

I haven’t figured out exactly how. Seems it refuses to bounce back to a previous target. Or it simply avoids enemy targets.

With Illusionary Elasticity I hoped it would hit the enemy, bounce to me and then back to the enemy. It doesn’t. Last bounce goes to the iMage instead, giving it retalitation.

If there is another player nearby, the bounce may go to him instead of the iMage.

If there is only enemies in range (me standing out of bounce range), it will bounce among enemies (but never bouncing back to a target who already got hit), applying confusion on up to three enemies.

Carighan.6758:

It seems interesting now because while it can hit Illusions, it won’t if a player is nearby. Exactly what I wanted! :O

Doesn’t might give them more damage? It’d be the same as if you got the might instead, only they benefit from it solely in that case. I could be wrong though.

No, clones do not benefit from might stacks on them.
I tested this before and after the patch.

(after patch this got somewhat complicated to test. now it’s tricky to put a might stack onto a clone, since they no longer receive bounce boons unless there is absolutely nothing else in range)

This is a wery strong improvment for mesmer running might stacking staff bounce build. Personaly I use Staff bounce on Shatter Cat heavy 2.0, I improving the build atm post patch and will share the updated build when its tested enought.

Shatter Ceavy 2.0

/Osicat

Snoxx.7943:

No, clones do not benefit from might stacks on them.
I tested this before and after the patch.

What!?!

Phantasms as well?