CD reduction: Conditional vs Flat amount
100% Agree. The only reason to ever like it more than the old system is when it’s basically “OPd” as in, granting a whole lot more than 20%. Any other time, most will naturally likely prefer a stable 20% over the “mmmmmaaaaayybe” more but most likely less than 20%.
So pre-nerf the Staff one was hugely popular for good reason, and now it’s rather “meh, please gimme the 20% back!”
Achieving balance with the new system is just too obscure. The flat amount is far easier for people to understand, depend upon for more skillful play rotations, and is easier to balance.
In short…gimme back my 20% on both Torch and Staff!
So far, the conditional ones only seem to encourage all-in gimmick builds, and are rife for nerfing if the gimmick is ever found to be too easy to achieve or too strong. At which point the trait in its entirety is close to straight-up useless. I think this is at odds with the overall goal of the new trait design, which is to avoid do-nothing feel-bad traits.
Nemain The Eyeless · [JOY] · Tarnished Coast · http://tcwvw.com
IMO, I prefer conditional cooldown reductions, but with a huge caveat. Namely, it’s all or nothing. Either every weapon for every class has some kind of conditional CDR, or none of them do.
Though actually my overall preference for an MMO is that cooldown reduction isn’t a thing in the first place unless its tied to a specific skill mechanic. (E.g., Mimic or Alacrity.)
Amberley Avalen – Charr Mesmer
Tanya Larina – Human Thief
Finchy Whyte – Sylvari Ranger
Tanya Larina – Human Thief
Finchy Whyte – Sylvari Ranger
If only the conditional reductions surpassed the unconditional ones to compensate for all-in builds, I’d be fine with them. But with the nerf to staff and the 1.5% on Pledge, I feel like conditional reductions are weaker in more than one way compared to unconditional reductions. Either up the percentage to be higher than unconditional reduction or give us the flat 20% reduction back.
I prefer conditional recharges IF they’re set up properly. Flat cdr always falls into the “boring, but necessary” category.
Specifically, The Pledge is everything that can go wrong with conditional recharge: The maximum benefit is small, there is no real tradeoff to achieving it in the field (you’re forced into PU though) and weapon itself doesn’t have enough of a mechanic to build around.
The original Chaotic Dampening was an entirely different story: It provided a clear tradeoff/counterplay in PvP due to blowing your primary defensive skill on cooldown, while the lack of risk in PvE let you easily reap the (very large) maximum benefit, adding a substantial boost to an otherwise inefficient and passive weapon.
But NO, they nerfed it to pieces because “reasons”, meanwhile the PU trolls are left free reign to cause ever more whine (regardless of how balanced the trait may or may not be, stealth=whine)
In theory I like condition, but only if it is significant both in amount and trigger.
Pistol is a good example. 25% reduction, but you need to interrupt for it.
The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.
Pistol is a good example. 25% reduction, but you need to interrupt for it.
When “free” 20% is standard that’s actually a bit on the weak side. The extra bleeds (would) make up for it in the scope of the single trait though.
Pistol is a good example. 25% reduction, but you need to interrupt for it.
When “free” 20% is standard that’s actually a bit on the weak side. The extra bleeds (would) make up for it in the scope of the single trait though.
Hm, I feel like 25% is fairly good since pistol has a good CC for it and we aren’t limited to only use that one skill, thus we can potentially get more than 25% if we land enough rupts. High risk, high reward, as they say. For staff and torch, though, it’s currently high effort, normal reward.
Pistol is the only good one.
Everything else is better off with a flat 20%.
Torch one is great in a PU build. Other than that its kinda kittenty.
Staff one is useless now.
I like the conditional CD reduction traits but they have to be stronger when used right. & useless when you mess up.
The Pistol one has the highest amount because its the most likely to have no effect.
You can stealth in all situations, you always have access to at least 2 Chaos Armour’s’ with staff but you can’t always interrupt.
The worst thing is the enemies where you would want multiple Duelists up quickly (Champs) is the time where you are least able to interrupt.
Gif flat 20% pls.
Torch one is great in a PU build. Other than that its kinda kittenty.
Staff one is useless now.I like the conditional CD reduction traits but they have to be stronger when used right. & useless when you mess up.
I’m kind of iffy with torch trait. It’s good in a PU build, sure… but what about a build with just the torch? It’s not even a matter of effort to get that reduction to be as good or better than the flat 20%, it’s a matter of investing traits and skills to make it as good. Without PU and without other stealth skills, the reduction for stealthing is 4.5%. With Decoy, 9%. With MI, 16.5%. With Veil, 19.5% reduction. You can’t even get to the same level of the flat reduction with all the stealth skills we have!
In the case of using the Pledge trait, its Pledge+PU or don’t bother.
Simply put, a bad trait which is wholly dependent on another trait to make it worth taking.
Torch without PU is kind of pathetic. It’s only really good for the extra condition cleanse. And with PU it encourages camping in stealth to minimise cooldowns which I don’t like.
And staff forces you to literally “jump through hoops” just to barely get a “normal” cooldown reduction.
At least with pistol you can get it with any interrupt – which if taking MoD and other suitable weapons (iwave, chaos storm, temporal curtain, F3, etc…) is not difficult and it gives a good payoff.
I’m all for conditional cooldown – but it seems to me that Mesmer is the only one who received these. I would seriously love to see it come in more into play, but the devs need to put their heads together and agree on this stuff.
To me, Robert Gee has good balance ideas. He (and his team?) design a Mesmer conditional damage boost and it’s reliant on stacks of vulnerability. Giving 12.5% bonus damage IF the target has 25 stacks of Vuln.
Meanwhile, the Thief people design a trait and say “10% if they have any conditions on them”. Every Thief weapon except Short Bow has a condition on it’s auto-attack, and the Shortbow is very capable of spammining conditions despite. So basically the Thief recieves a flat, no help needed, 10% damage boost while the Mesmer gets a much more balanced version. Everyone else keeps their 20% CD reductions, and Mesmers have to jump through hoops for ours. Yet we need the nerfs :-/
The one exception to this is persistence of memory, that trait rules. Otherwise yes I prefer static 20% reductions.
It’s a double-edged sword. If done right, conditional reduction and flat reduction will have its own unique benefits. Flat reduction would have overall less improvement as it is more reliable. And every spec could enjoy the same benefit from the same trait. Conditional reduction on the other hand forces you to trait into certain spec but the reward is (supposed to be) more significant (logically speaking).
The question is, do the benefits justify the conditions? And do the conditions make sense when taking into consideration the functions of the weapons?
If I had to re-write the condition reductions:
- Pistol: Kept as-is. Works fine, feels rewarding, requires active input.
- Torch: Reduces CD by 20% if a stealth effect runs the full duration (this balances it against not having PU since stealth ends faster) and expires naturally. Even for stealth not applied by us or via combo fields.
- Staff: Reduces CD when Chaos Armor triggers. This works even if Chaos Armor from your field is applied to someone else (you were either part of the chain, i.e., saw the combo marker) and then triggers on them being attacked. More active this way, just sitting on CA doesn’t do anything, CA actively doing what it is supposed to do does. Reduction amount can be increased in return, especially with the AE functionality, 5%~10%
The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.
I don’t mind conditional recharges but you generally need to keep a tight leash on them.
The pistol one is good for PvP and WvW, not so hot for PvE but then I’d choose phantasmal fury usually and I can get illusionists celerity to make up for what I lost before the patch.
The staff one doesn’t play well with others. By that I mean if someone keeps putting down lava fonts or light fields then it’s capacity is much reduced. You are in effect punished for playing with others which Anet has said shouldn’t happen. I think the condition needs changing, perhaps a 2% recharge per clone or 1% per boon on you.
Torch encourages the use of PU which is not helping the current Mesmer hate. Perhaps make it a flat recharge or 4% per enemies hit by torch skills. Carighans idea is nice too.
If I had to re-write the condition reductions:
- Pistol: Kept as-is. Works fine, feels rewarding, requires active input.
- Torch: Reduces CD by 20% if a stealth effect runs the full duration (this balances it against not having PU since stealth ends faster) and expires naturally. Even for stealth not applied by us or via combo fields.
- Staff: Reduces CD when Chaos Armor triggers. This works even if Chaos Armor from your field is applied to someone else (you were either part of the chain, i.e., saw the combo marker) and then triggers on them being attacked. More active this way, just sitting on CA doesn’t do anything, CA actively doing what it is supposed to do does. Reduction amount can be increased in return, especially with the AE functionality, 5%~10%
Actually Pistol is the one I want to change the most. If you are fighting a Champion or something else with Defiant how rewarding is it to get no CD at all?
I would want to be based on some sort of application of Daze and incorporated into break bears somehow. Like the CC would reduce the breakbar as normal but count as an application of Daze (without actually dazing the target).
Actually Pistol is the one I want to change the most. If you are fighting a Champion or something else with Defiant how rewarding is it to get no CD at all?
Hrm, fair point though I don’t generally evaluate these issues much personally, for these two reasons:
- I’m ok with not all traits being equally useful in all situations. Especially across game modes.
- I’d rather err towards PvP (though I should clarify this means WvW for me, not the wannabe-MOBA that is sPvP) as my balance metric instead of PvE, as, in theory, PvE can be rebalanced on the mob-side, too. I could always design mobs with plenty crucial-to-interrupt ads if need be, basically.
The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.
Actually Pistol is the one I want to change the most. If you are fighting a Champion or something else with Defiant how rewarding is it to get no CD at all?
Hrm, fair point though I don’t generally evaluate these issues much personally, for these two reasons:
- I’m ok with not all traits being equally useful in all situations. Especially across game modes.
- I’d rather err towards PvP (though I should clarify this means WvW for me, not the wannabe-MOBA that is sPvP) as my balance metric instead of PvE, as, in theory, PvE can be rebalanced on the mob-side, too. I could always design mobs with plenty crucial-to-interrupt ads if need be, basically.
As break bars/CC immunity (Warrior for a start) start appearing in PvP it might start becoming an issue there too.
I’m ok with not all traits being equally useful in all situations. Especially across game modes.
This.
As break bars/CC immunity (Warrior for a start) start appearing in PvP it might start becoming an issue there too.
Doesn’t change anything. Warrior is already the biggest pain to interrupt with all the stability. In fact, a breakbar would make stuns far more important if the interrupt effect of the breakbar is strong enough.