Guild Wars 2

Hello. I’m not sure if a post like this has already been posted. I apologize this type of discussion already exists. Please link me to the discussion, if it exists and I will try my best to contribute.

A long time ago, I am aware that, Chaos Armor had once granted us 8 seconds of protection (that we could spread to our allies), and boons to us and conditions to our foes whenever we were struck. One of those boons was an additional 5 seconds of protection. There are lots of ways we could initiate Chaos Armor and that massive 8 seconds of protection all the time was too much. Please feel free to correct me, support me or add anything to this idea.

I think the nerf was a little too effective. I read a while ago that a small change can make a big difference. A large change is not usually necessary. So I’d like us to discuss how much of a change is really necessary. How much protection should Chaos Armor grant in order to be effective but not too effective. I’m not an expert so I had to rely on posts. I’ve noticed recent posts about how we shouldn’t lay down chaos fields so that our allies wouldn’t even get chaos armor. In some cases Chaos Armor should be useful and other cases, other fields should have more priority.

I would like to request you to post a little bit of the usual purpose of chaos armor if you’d like. Since I’m kinda new. I’d love to play a support, defence-spreading Mesmer. That’s why I’m concerned and maybe we could make a change (perhaps by the time the expansion comes out!).

So what do you think? 3 seconds of protection instead of 8? Or maybe a change to the boons and conditions per hit? What do you say? Thanks all!

Sincerely,

Martial

Martial.4916:

A long time ago, I am aware that, Chaos Armor had once granted us 8 seconds of protection (that we could spread to our allies), and boons to us and conditions to our foes whenever we were struck.

No it didn’t. Activating the skill chaos armor used to provide 5 seconds of protection. Additionally, it was bugged as to not provide protection when struck.

Martial.4916:

One of those boons was an additional 5 seconds of protection. There are lots of ways we could initiate Chaos Armor and that massive 8 seconds of protection all the time was too much. Please feel free to correct me, support me or add anything to this idea.

The 5 seconds of protection on cast was only from using the skill itself. Applying chaos armor from finishers did not count.

To be blunt, you’re completely wrong in almost every way here.

If Mesmers were meant to have protection they’d proc it at random like all good mesmer things!

Oh I see. Well I’ll make a PU support Mesmer anyway. What do you think of the current state of chaos armor?

Martial.4916:

Oh I see. Well I’ll make a PU support Mesmer anyway. What do you think of the current state of chaos armor?

Even with “nerfs” it’s an insanely useful skill. Perfect if you need some space. Think of it as a defensive version of Chaos Storm.

Stormbolt.7293:

Even with “nerfs” it’s an insanely useful skill. Perfect if you need some space. Think of it as a defensive version of Chaos Storm.

Alright. I didn’t and don’t know enough.

Could you please tell me the occasions where our allies could count on the chaos armor?

Ross Biddle.2367:

If Mesmers were meant to have protection they’d proc it at random like all good mesmer things!

Bountiful Interruption says “Hiiii!”

They should remove the IC counter and apply confusion on every hit.

Martial.4916:

Oh I see. Well I’ll make a PU support Mesmer anyway. What do you think of the current state of chaos armor?

On a singular scale it’s rather disappointing to use given the 1 second ICD. There was some nice elements of player skill before, where large penalties were applied to opponents use multi-impact skills over single-impact skills. Rangers deciding that Chaos Armour was a good time to rapid fire your face felt the pain, whereas Rangers that decided it was a good time to PBS your face and stick to long range shot reaped the benefits from a Mesmer who just decided to reduce his clone integration by covering himself with a big shiny purple ball. These risks and benefits still apply of course, but just not quite as satisfying.

Now, I find it’s best used personally when you must face-tank something due to cooldowns and pray to the RNG gods that you don’t just get swiftness every proc.

As for the combo version, it’s well worth blasting Chaos Storm when your party has to sit in some AoE (causes havoc for Rangers using Barrage). That’s probably why the ICD was introduced.

I never realized that the gameplay around Chaos Armor was so complex. What is IDC? (is it Inventory Drop Chance?)

Alright, I am not aware of all the changes that were made to Chaos Armor. I’m sure a lot of thought went into it for the better. Completely destroying rangers that use mult-shot attacks is unfair.

Ok, this is how I’d like to use my PU Support Mesmer. General boon support but ultimately when we’re in trouble, I’d like to put everyone in stealth and heal. There may be others that would heal them or provide important boons in order to help everyone charge back. Providing chaos armor at this time may be crucial in order to help everyone bounce back. Alright, I’m positive that in some circumstances it will be useful (we shouldn’t just use it willy-nilly) and the shield will be a useful tool that I’m waiting for.

But what is the IC counter and ICD?

Martial.4916:

I never realized that the gameplay around Chaos Armor was so complex. What is IDC? (is it Inventory Drop Chance?)

ICD (check your spelling) is Internal CoolDown.

Thanks Fay. Internal CoolDown. I think I understand. Does that mean that the Chaos Armor will proc every 1 second at least?

Simonoly said multi-impact skills would proc Chaos Armor way too often and imagine the boons you’d get and the conditions we’d proc. Is it possible that the Chaos Armor proc just once for one multi-shot skill and just once for a one shot skill? (with a small internal cooldown) That way if we get attacked by multiple attackers, we’d benefit more. And if someone is chaining us, we’d do more damage. Just suggestions here.

The rangers would still eat full retaliation damage, so the ICD does not make much sense.
The devs reasoning behind the ICD change was AFAIK to “bring” Chaos Armor in line with the other auras.

Ok. Thank you Korusef. Balance was already in their mind (well ofcourse! What the he** Martial?!). Ok.

I was just concerned when players didn’t want Chaos Armor in dungeons. No more laying down ethereal fields, you know? I’d want to build a support Mesmer that would share chaos armor with allies.

ArenaNet didn’t do anything wrong. Protection on every activation is too strong and is almost like an I win button. I like knowing what I’m going to get so I can share it at the right time. But randomness is fun and requires strategy.

I’ll tell you why I’m excited about the expansion. ArenaNet will introduce the shield with a potential long-range explosion that would help us share Chaos Armor. I’m sure they have some plans for Chaos Armor. I can’t wait! But until then I’ll train by sharing Chaos Armor with my allies with torch-explosion.

There is no reason that the up time on protection from chaos armor should have been an issue…when compared with the protection up time a hammer guardian can establish for a group. The up time component can’t really be the issue.

Except we’re looking at a 35s CD skill, which proc 5 times at best in theory. However it usually proc 3 times due to blind or attack speed, so it kind of wasted a precious weapon skill slot there. That is not to say chaos armor is horrible when compared to other auras btw, it just generally any aura other than shocking and frost makes little difference to the fight.

However, popular ele builds usually have access to 5s fury + swiftness when activating auras, and they don’t lack protection at all. So auras can make a lot of impact on eles, just not us mesmers.

P.S. ethereal fields may disrupt fire might chains or water field (if they actually need it lol) so dungeon people don’t really like that.

Thank you ODB and NICENIKESHOE.

I have a suggestion. Whenever protection procs, does the protection apply to the attack that proced it?

Martial.4916:

Thank you ODB and NICENIKESHOE.

I have a suggestion. Whenever protection procs, does the protection apply to the attack that proced it?

That’s a good question, I’ll have to test that out. My gut says no, but I’m not really sure.

I believe Chaos armor is significantly under powered, and not only is it not worth a slot on a weapon, but is not worth it’s cooldown.

Max 3 procs that leave you susceptible to spike on a defensive skill with a very unfavorable pool of potential procs needs a proper change.

Should at the very least be a hard block that procs condis or gives boons and have a lower c/d. (25 – 30 second C/D, 3 second block, Procs Boons OR Conditions [not both] on hit. No ICD)

I do think the current chaos armor as an aura via combo finisher is fine, but I believe the weapon skill NEEDS a change, even if not what I suggested above.

Maybe we could add Aegis or Stability and Weakness or Torment. Aegis could block the attack that proced it or the next attack.

No weapon skill can ever grant stability, but I like your idea. Swapping boons will work but we must keep in mind that this is a defensive skill and we don’t want to dilute more defensive measures. So instead of weakness (prevent dodges) and torment (prevent escape), I think it best to swap cripple with chill and buff confusion to 3 stacks to actually make opponent reconsider before attacking. Then change swiftness to aegis so chaos armor skill actually have potent defenses (aegis/protection/regen). Finally change CD to 28s to make it more accessible.

Ofc the easiest way would be to remove ICD

I agree with NICENIKESHOE; too many different boons and conditions would make us less predictable. If we rely on protection, what if we don’t get it?

And I agree that weakness and torment would not help our purpose: surviving or running away. I believe ArenaNet was trying to help us run away (swiftness to help us run) (which can be an important goal at certain times). Removing swiftness and replacing it with aegis would help us stay and fight. It’s a new purpose. We gotta ask ourselves if that purpose is what we want, which could be good depending on what we want to do at a given circumstance.

But an alternative could be to add aegis and chill. That would give the option to players to choose what they want: to run or stay, well, depending on what random boons we get. Then the purpose will be defined by the boons we get. (I don’t know if that’s a good thing.) And if we get both swiftness and aegis, well it’ll help us run away. The downside would be that the specific boon that we want will be diluted.

This way, the ICD could be a good thing. If we get fewer boons, we’ll pick what we do depending on the boon.

What do you think?

It has the same proBlem pre-Buff engineer elixir tosses had… Since you can’t rely on ANY effect, there is no way to use the skill proactively. There’s no situation that makes you say “Oh, Chaos Armor can deal with this! How fortunate that I have that skill, which I will now use!”

Currently it’s more like “this situation generally sucks, MAYBE if I use this it’ll get Better or mayBe I’ll get nothing at all”

Thank you for your thoughts. I really didn’t know if what I suggested was a good thing. What we could consider is changing the purpose to staying and fighting, instead of running away. Teleportation away from an ethereal field helps us run away. Maybe Chaos Armor was supposed to help us with that goal. Remember, running away may not be a bad thing. However, I understand it isn’t the usual goal.

Randomizing a purpose might not be a good idea. It could be fun, but I mean, we’re not being reliable and the specific boon or condition that we want, would be diluted. More thoughts?

I agree with Ron. Randomizing our purpose or having many purposes, is not reliable. It’s not reliable because then we’d have multiple purposes for one given situation. So let’s focus on one purpose.

And I think the purpose that we need to keep our distance is the most useful purpose when wielding the staff or any long range weapon. For that chaos armor could be helpful. If a melee opponent gets close to you and you get hit, you need to get away to some distance. And I think that’s useful when using long ranged weapons, like the staff.

So maybe we should focus on improving chaos armor in order to serve that purpose better. What do you think?

And thanks Fay. I’m hoping to read from your analysis (if protection applies to the attack that proced it). That would be helpful because it could save us from that spike.

I do think that some protection on the skill version of chaos armor should be there. Maybe not 5 seconds. But maybe 1-3 seconds. Something minor. Not valuable enough to spread maybe, but could save us from that hit. Maybe.

And perhaps we could change when we use Chaos Armor. I was thinking, only use it when long ranged allies are about to get hit with some close-ranged opponents. You could apply chaos armor only to them to help them get away.

So, please provide some thoughts. Should we and how can we improve Chaos Armor? When or where should we apply chaos armor to our allies?

Some guaranteed effect up front (like it used to have) would Be the same form of Buff the engi elixir tosses got. They still have a random effect, But it’s in addition to some certainly useful effect (and the effects are generally somewhat underwhelming compared to other class’s versions of the effects e.g. staBility is shorter than guard shout’s, stealth is shorter than shadow refuge and less spammaBle than smoke Blasts).

Protection is nice, But I think aegis would Be even cooler (I only mean for the Staff 4 Chaos Armor, not for the Blast-Ethereal comBo chaos armor). It would give anyone But guardians the aBility to give the whole party aegis— currently NOBODY But them can do that even ONE time. I’m fine with that Being something at which guardians excelt, But currently if you enjoy providing clutch Blocks for your party, you MUST play guardian.

I do believe aegis would help more than protection. What does everyone think?