Guild Wars 2

Stickerhappy requested this one so here goes,

So I’ve used Bountiful Disillusionment in the past. I gave it a crack for a little while to see what I could pull out of it and to be honest I didn’t find it that bad. Perhaps that’s why I wasn’t all that inspired to bring it up in it’s own thread first (like some other Grandmasters). That said, not finding it that bad doesn’t mean it’s all that good either. We’re talking grandmaster traits here, a 6 point investment in Chaos. This gives us a bit of context to work with and two key problems came to mind when I began to review this trait.

• 1) Bountiful Disillusionment competes with two other very strong GM traits in the Chaos line (let’s not even get into the fact stronger options exist in other lines). Prismatic Understanding is self focused and offers superior survive and sustain. While Chaotic Interruption offers superior CC and group composition support. With these distinctions at play what does Bountiful Disillusionment offer? Self focused underwhelming boon application with an emphases on damage, and minor sustain contribution (regen on distortion).

• 2) Bountiful Disillusionment creates an oppressive environment for the creative mind trying to find a build that best utilizes it’s features. 6 In chaos is great for many things: Roaming, Bunker, Interrupt CC, but typically damage isn’t one of them. Investing in the Chaos line tends to draw damage away from builds for the sake of survivability, and the return for investment from Bountiful Disillusionment isnt able to bridge that gap in any build I can dream up. This is largely tied to the mechanic, 1 shatter = 1 boon with X CD. Illusion investment is required to ensure more shatters for more boons, but shatter builds also work thanks to things like DE. As already stated, how to build appropriately becomes a vexing problem for any serious player.

So how do we make this trait more appealing? To be honest I don’t know. Given we already have two great GM traits in Chaos I feel like there isnt even room for a third. Perhaps the best solution is to find a new, better home for Bountiful Disillusionment along with appropriate tweaks. However, instead of throwing the challenge out the window I’ll offer a couple ideas for the sake of inspiration and conversation.

• Tie boon application to per illusion shattered. The current duration number might have to be adjusted, but the overall effect should be more duration and stacks for maximum illusions shattered (3) than what’s currently available.

• Next make the boons AoE. Max 5 targets. Now suddenly we have a GM trait in Chaos that offers a focus on damage, but has group composition application. Notice the theme with the other two Chaos GM traits in that regard, it gives the trait strength, and does so in a contrasting way. This change alone would make this trait appealing I think.

Ideas, thoughts?

Eh, BI is not a GM trait. You take it on the Master-slot so you can take either PU or CI on the GM-slot.

Carighan.6758:

Eh, BI is not a GM trait. You take it on the Master-slot so you can take either PU or CI on the GM-slot.

We’re talking about Bountiful Disillusionment not Bountiful Interruption. Opsie!

Oh woops, my bad. And yeah, that trait is very oddly seated. I sorta get the point, but it even eschews Chaos’ theme of randomized effects.

I think before we even think too much about what BD should do, it might be time to think about what our traitlines should be. And decide – because that’s one thing where GW2 would really need consistency – how traitlines are supposed to interact with their classes. Do they:

• Augment 1~2 elements of the class, making them lots more powerful? So if I want to play for stealth, shatter and interrupts, I would pick something like 30 stealth-line, 20 shatter-line, 20 interrupts-line?
• Or should they do the opposite, have a consistent theme on all 13 traits and apply that theme to as many effects as possible? Effectively if I wanted to focus on shatter I’d spread points all over, grabbing as many shatter-enhancing effects as possible, while focusing on one line would instead add theme X to a lot of my abilities.

In the case of Chaos, I think the line is closer to (2). Its consistent theme seems randomness, giving random boons and conditions, producing Chaos Storm on stop, Chaos Armour on rally, enhancing staff and trident, etc.
If this is to be the consistent theme, then having it apply to Shatter via a trait is a good thing, as it’s a class mechanic not yet affected by Chaos. Only… it needs to actually be Chaos-like.

This ignores the DE-problem ofc, but I see that as something fully separate.

1. Boon application must be aoe
2. Boon application must scale with number of illusions shattered
3. Boons provided need to be reworked

Chaos is a mishmash of boons, defense, support, and odd offense. Making the boons aoe fills all 4 of those roles neatly. Additionally, this trait needs to give a reason and reward for properly preparing and executing strong shatters. To that end, the boons need to scale in strength.

Lastly, the boons need to be rethought entirely.

Mind Wrack
Whatever goes here will have 100% uptime if managed properly. A reasonable choice here would be regeneration, at 5 seconds per clone shattered.

Cry of Frustration
This will be less available, closer to 50%-80% uptime if properly managed. Additionally, it can be more offensive than something that’s spammed repeatedly like mind wrack. Something appropriate would be 6 seconds of fury per clone shattered.

Diversion
This can be a potent offensive tool. Used sparingly but effectively it turns normal offensive spikes into devastating damage nukes. 5 stacks of might for 15 seconds per clone shattered is appropriate for this skill.

Distortion
The defensive shatter. Used as a potent defense, the boon from this shatter needs to share that potent defense with allies of the Mesmer. As such, it should provide 3 seconds of protection and 2 seconds of stability per clone shattered.

Because I’m jaded and cynical
None of these changes will be considered or otherwise implemented, but were they to be enacted, this trait would instantly become a strong and very viable support trait without causing the Mesmer themself to become overpowered.

I think in general the aoe + improved boons are a good idea but I like a bit stranger ideas. So going in another direction entirely… make it spawn a clone after shattering. Similar to how triumphant distortion was improved by giving it an additional effect.

That would allow it to work instead of or alongside DE, primarily in condition shatter builds? If combined with making the boons AOE/generally better support might become an option too.

Ideally it would have a random weapon because it’s the chaos tree but that could be difficult without weapon models to copy.

Quoted from this thread

Bountiful Disillusionment:

Concept: compared to its older cousins (PU and CI) in the Chaos traitline, BD, while has a nice concept, lacks the random flavour well-defined in this Chaos traitline: all the boons are guaranteed and assigned specifically to the shatter skills. Therefore, this trait feels like an odd one out of the bunch.

Implementation: BD current performance falls short for a variety of reasons:

(1) it’s a shatter-based trait placed in a position that excludes either DE or IP, therefore its hard to make a shatter build using this trait;

(2) the boons gained are of little weight and short duration, making it hard to utilize them right after shatters to boost up your own dmg and/or your phantasm. Also, it leads to a gimmicky playstyle where u have to constantly sacrifice your current phantasms to boost the dmg for next summoned phantasms?

My proposed change: Keep the current implementation as the guaranteed component of this trait, but add the random part for it as described below:

10% chance to cast Mirror Images skill upon shattering. This version of Mirror Images doesn’t have the stunbreak component. Internal cooldown 45 (36s traited with iCelerity).

My reasons behind this addition: it boosts the effective illusion regeneration rate. When it procs, you can instantly make use of the boons from previous shatter to fuel your next offensive shatter or defend yourself better with extra 2s of Distortion. Also, it can help increase build diversity by providing an alternative (better or worse, im not sure) to our only option DE for clone production at the moment.

I think the current functionality is fine, just need to choose better boons.

Mind Wrack – Might: 10 s (3 stacks)
Cry of Frustration – Fury: 15 s
Diversion – Protection: 5 s
Distortion – Swiftness: 20 s

What if it worked more like IP in that the mesmer counts as an illusion for it to process? Since the boons are applied the same no matter how many illusions are shattered, why not apply the boon with NO illusion at the cost of a shatter cooldown.

Its NOT a better IP. But adds some strategy and something different (a bit of quick counter like in GW1) to the Mesmer. Your giving the Mesmer a quick “on-demand” boon.

I’m not a big fan of making more shatter traits dependend on the number of clones. Granted, this encourages smart gameplay or at least increases the skill ceiling. However, it will a) never be desirable in an offensive build since it competes with IP and b) build diversity will be restricted because DE will be required for the maximum amount of efficiency.

Things I’d like to see for BI:

• Make it an area effect centered around the Mesmer
• Keep it skill centered – not clone based
• Adjust the boons. I’d enjoy Might (F1), Fury (F2), Aegis (F3), Protection (F4).

To expand the trait a bit and also add more chaos onto it, why not…

Bountiful Disillusionment
When your clones or phantasms are destroyed for any reason, they apply a random boon in an area around them.
Number of targets: 5
Radius: 240
_Provides all boons with different durations, depending on boon.