Guild Wars 2

Robert Gee.9246:

Bug Fixes

• Continuum Split – Fixed a bug which caused the Continuum Rift to take no damage from attacks.

NO!!! Nonononononono!!! You do NOT disguise this change as a bug!

There were hundreds of comments here in the forums why it was a terrible idea to let it be targetable! You get combobreaked and total garbage results just because the rift dies to random aoes! There were great positive feedbacks after noticing that you changed it to take no dmg at all.

The skill is NOT overpowered just because it will always work like the caster wants. The counterplay comes from the skills used DURING the duration. Do not ruin the best part of the Chronomancer now!

Don’t do it again! Don’t state something great as a bug and change it to garbage tier again, like you did with the mantras!

greez …

…

The Rift was always intended to be targetable and damageable, from the very beginning, as a necessary counterbalance to the power of being able to reset cooldowns and damage.

It was originally intended to be targetable, yes, even tough, it was never in the betas, for 3 betas dude… 3 …

I wonder how much “HP” or hits this rift will have. I can only imagine all the fails that will happen just because some mapwide aoe is gonna wreck it immediately after being cast …

About that highly praised and necessary counterbalance – as if there weren’t other mechanics and skills that are extremly strong without enough or any counters… Sure we have to start somewhere but to balance pvp and pve they will first have to finally split those game modes completly.

I’m pretty sure that this bug was an occasional thing that happened, not a normal occurrence. I remember being knocked out of CS by a boss once or twice when I was careless about my rift placement.

Ultimately, there were not ‘hundreds of comments’ asking for the rift to be untargetable. There were maybe 5, generously, and usually followed by explanations of why it’s fine as it is.

Sorry, but this is a legitimate bug fix. It allows for counter play and rewards high skill players that can position their split wisely. I.e. you’ll drop your split when you’re on a ledge, then jump down before blowing cooldowns instead of just mindlessly dropping it anywhere.

Oh it was a bug after all. I couldn’t attack a single rift from all betas.

Well that explains your problems Cynz.

To the OP it’s a fix, it’s meant to be possible to kill it otherwise being able to use as many strong skills as possible would be silly strong.

This is as others say, a very valid bug fix. It just means we need to use further skilled play to use it effectively. Mesmer has always had a high skill ceiling, and I would imagine most Mesmer’s are happy with that. And, keep in mind that we can very likely find ways to use the intended way for this to function, to our advantage as well. I’m sure we can figure out instances where we want to see it destroyed by an enemy, and place it in harms way purposely to do something really quickly. You may not think that to be the case now, but give us some time to experiment, and you might be surprised at the plays we make out of Chronomancer and its quirks.

The counterplay to CS is what makes the skill so much more interesting. It would be far too forgiving if the rift couldn’t be destroyed.

There needs to be a certain amount of preparedness to CS usage otherwise it will just be boring to use and incredibly frustrating to come up against.

Maybe overreacted a bit with the opening comment, but my opinion stays the same: I only see the pve aoe scenario we all already know with phantasms. As for pvp, it’s ok to have a counterplay, but it’s also just unnecessary…

I’m surprised they didn’t make it so you had to run up to it and finish it.

Xyonon.3987:

Maybe overreacted a bit with the opening comment, but my opinion stays the same: I only see the pve aoe scenario we all already know with phantasms. As for pvp, it’s ok to have a counterplay, but it’s also just unnecessary…

Counterplay unnecessary? What?

I mean that it’s good to have counterplay to a skill itself, but this should be achieved by using your own skills or by movement or hiding / evading. But it’s unnecessary to be able to destroy the rift. There is already counterplay to the whole situation aswell a drawback.

The mesmer will be able to change the situation during those 1-4 sec, but after this time you will exactly know where he will be and the counterplay is already the adventage of positioning AFTER the rift.

TL;DR: I understand if ppl say “the rift should be destroyable, because it’s a strong skill”, but it’s not required to be able to have counterplay. It just makes it much easier.

Can you destroy a wall of reflection in melee? Or a banner? Or a shadow refugee? The examples can become very absurd because it’s not how we know it to be, but if a guardian wall would always have been targetable, you would call me insane for saying that THAT would be unnecessary too, wouldn’t you?

Tactical placement of the rift IS skillful play (for example place it on the ledge at mid point in forest or on top of the mountain JP).

Btw, shadow refuge is useless if you get knocked out of it or get his by aoe reveal/taunt (see revenants, rangers, engis).

As far as guardian walls go, you can go in melee and not be affected by the wall, you can stop to attack as well or just get around the wall :| Here counterplay. How could player counterplay complete return of all skills used by mesmers? He can’t really unless he managed to CC mesmer for veeeeeeerrrryyy long time (which is unrealistic given stealth and stun breaks mesmers have)…. Holy hell how much would i love to press F3, use up all my ini, my utilities and press F3 again to get it all back. Possibility to kill rift is not needed, really?

Yup, really – still got the same opinion.

The mesmers survivablity relies on decieving your enemy by not letting the enemy know your next step. The counterplay is to try to evade as much damage and cc as you can for those 1-4 sec, after that you can react by knowing exactly where the mesmer will be.

You can trap the mesmer after the rift. Those 1-4 sec are like dangerious, ofc, but everyone has something to deal with the situation. A thief can go invis for the time, a guard can use his invuln, a warrior, engi can use blocks and so on. Some builds and professions will have more problems with it, others won’t. But with a targetable rift, everyone has no problem. Burst dat rift and cleave the mesmer too when he reappears, yay, such amazingly deep counterplay … That’s just too simple.

Individually, every skill that the mesmer could use while in CS has its own counterplay, this is true. However, a large part of counterplay is itself cooldowns of the skills. Counterplay for things wouldn’t be possible if their cooldowns were too short for their impact, and this is important.

CS allows you to drastically increase the effect of a skill, or drastically reduce its cooldown (depending on which way you look at it). This means that it has drastic consequences for the normal counterplay of skills. You can’t just say ‘oh, you dodged gravity well the first time, so why don’t you dodge it a second time?’ That’s ridiculous, the whole point of dropping it a second time is because you can’t dodge it a second time, and that’s what makes CS so strong.

Accordingly, since CS itself is what allows this change in counterplay mechanics, CS itself must have counterplay. Counterplay is effectively removed from skills you’re able to double-tap on with CS, and shifted to counterplaying CS itself. This counterplay is given in the form of a destroyable rift.

If this counterplay were removed, then CS effectively also removes counterplay from all the skills you drop during it, and that would be a bad thing.

tobascodagama.2961:

The Rift was always intended to be targetable and damageable, from the very beginning, as a necessary counterbalance to the power of being able to reset cooldowns and damage.

The uproar about this is a bit baffling, yes. I mean sure, maybe the mechanic is too weak with this. Could be. Could not be. Dunno, give me a beta weekend to judge that.

Still, independent of that and given the serious buffs to most elements of the Chronomancer, there needs to be a balance between “with-Chrono” and “without-Chrono”. As in, Mesmer-without-Chronomancer-line needs to be viable, just via having that replacement line.
Now this is going to be tricky, but maybe this destroyable rift works? I don’t know, need to test it.

I mean sure, later on, once we have 6+ elite specs, maybe using a single one will become a necessity as the base class is weaker, but I wouldn’t want that right now.

To be fair the “uproar” is pretty much one person.

You know you’re wrong when all the mesmers in a thread agree with the thief….