Guild Wars 2

Is Power Block (Grandmaster Domination trait) effective in PvE against NPC and particularly against bosses ?

I have tried a few times but my strategy to try out was just … ridiculously stupid. So I ask if anyone cleverly tested it out. Because adding a 15 sec time on the cooldown of bosses spells could be very interesting. But my guts are telling me that this is a many things about mesmer completely bugged or not usable at all.

I really miss GW1 mesmer possibilites regarding to interrupting monsters and shutting them down entirely and this trait kinda give this in a very shy way I would say.

Anyone knows ?

Many mob attacks were CD-less and weren’t affected by Power Block, so it was used only is a very niche encounters. The trait was quite useful against hard hitting bosses in dungeons where you’d coordinate defiance strips with interrupts. Now with defiance being a break-bar, Power Block got shafted down to the trash level even for those niche encounters – it’s useless.

Unless you’ll be fighting a boss without a break bar (ie Bjarl in CoE) then there is no real point in running the trait.

Thanks for the answer.
So in a nutshell it does work on NPCs but the defiance system sucks so hard that mesmer suffer greatly from it and devs don’t care (since it’s not the only trait hardly affected by it).
Ok … awesome … an other reason pushing me to reroll …

You can really make use of Power Block in those niche situations. Best example I can provide is the tentacles on Jade Maw. If you successfully Power Block both their attacks they’ll just sit there doing nothing. Power Block also isn’t bad for the extra damage and weakness it provides. Pair with something like Tides of Time from shield (no target limit) you can potentially shutdown a group of enemies.

All ‘interrupt’ traits are now effectively garbage tier in pve because of the prevalence of breakbars (beyond some niche use as savacli says). There are 7 of them, btw.

That said, there is a distinct possibility that the devs are working on a solution, as it has been mentioned before. If the solution is (as many of us want it to be) to allow them to simply proc when they should, even if the skill was not actually interrupted, then such skills will immediately become valuable. Power Block used wisely, for example, would essentially add damage to Mantra of Distraction, so long as you use it during a monster’s channel. That’s not bad.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

All ‘interrupt’ traits are now effectively garbage tier in pvp because of the prevalence of breakbars (beyond some niche use as savacli says).

Just to prevent someone from being dumb, Alpha means PvE. Power Block is very competitive in PvP vs Mental Anguish :)

Myrias.8732:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

All ‘interrupt’ traits are now effectively garbage tier in pvp because of the prevalence of breakbars (beyond some niche use as savacli says).

Just to prevent someone from being dumb, Alpha means PvE. Power Block is very competitive in PvP vs Mental Anguish

Yes, thank you. Edited.

On a similar thought, is there any good reason to take Confounding Suggestions on a PvE setting? Usually we lack dazes in this environment. Does increasing daze duration affect the amount of breakbar taken due to a daze?

I would assume empowered illusions is almost strictly better.

Stun > daze on breakbars.

So the stun every 5 seconds is the only real benefit of this trait? Seems meh considering most all breakbars melt to Shield 5, F3, etc. as is.

Myrias.8732:

So the stun every 5 seconds is the only real benefit of this trait? Seems meh considering most all breakbars melt to Shield 5, F3, etc. as is.

Three iAvengers means permanent alacrity for the party (higher dps) and permanent slow on the boss.

Ananeos.4587:

Three iAvengers means permanent alacrity for the party (higher dps) and permanent slow on the boss.

I’m confused, are you agreeing with me due to 3 avengers giving a lot of breakbar damage via slow?

It still deals good damage on interrupt for trash, but rather random and the lock itself became useless. I like traiting F1 more nowdays.

Myrias.8732:

Ananeos.4587:

Three iAvengers means permanent alacrity for the party (higher dps) and permanent slow on the boss.

I’m confused, are you agreeing with me due to 3 avengers giving a lot of breakbar damage via slow?

Yes?