Guild Wars 2

We know the history of this. It was good when it came out, arguably to the point of OP, but then it was nerfed and now suffers two major problems.

• 1) 10 second internal CD
• 2) Doesn’t effect thieves weapon skills

The second problem is part of a larger issue that Anet needs to look seriously at, and I’m not sure there’s a simple solution the community can provide (except things such as eating initiative etc, which seems outside of the pale of the traits actual function). So I had a couple ideas for the first issue to at least make the trait worth investing in.

Either

• 50% chance, enemy skills you interrupt have an increased CD (No Internal CD)

or

• 100% chance, enemy skills you interrupt have an increased CD (10s ICD), 33% chance enemy skills you interrupt have an increased CD. (So every 10s you’re assured an increased CD with a constant 33% chance between)

Thoughts? Ideas?

Just make it Revert it to the way it was before and add Confusion on interrupt

Only classes that will be greatly affected with the 100% is the obvious cast classes like necro heal and all that.

I vote for the 100% because being a GM trait, it would be hard to get with CI, you can but without sharper images and DE.

And Also PB will not affect rez and stomping and AA. and we should be set.

But will affect thief weapon sets.

PB was successful on release mostly due to two things.

It put Auto attacks on a 10s CD.

It put Thief skills on a 10s CD.

It was also putting resing and stomping on a 10s ICD as well and that was flat out broken.. it could also bypass defiant and Stability..

How would i like to see it become a nice viable option again doesn’t really mesh with either of your options personally.

Tho if you really want to make it GM worthy and still keep it similar to one of your options..

Remove the ICD, put it at 100% and then add a 33% chance to place all other weapon or utility skills on kitten CD.. (note that kitten CD should be added to any current CD timers already in play.)

I think what needs to happen is a partial return to how it worked before it was nerfed. It was a pretty good trait back then, all in all.

I think removing the ICD and making it drain 2 Initiative from Thieves (the equivalent to 5s of interrupt) would be enough to do something about it.

At this stage, I would prefer a complete rework of Power Block.

While the concept is nice, thief mechanic is simply way too established and any tweak to Power Block while keeping the same concept would still make thief have either an unfair advantage or disadvantage to any other classes.

Not sure if anyone would like it but I’m just throwing out my own idea of Power Block anyway.

Power Block: Blocking now has 33% chance to daze the attacker for 2s. No internal CD, works with Aegis boon.

Imagine the synergy with Halting Strike in this Domination traitline.

Powerblock : Interrupt should stun for 2 sec , ICD 10 sek.

Actually, would it be a big problem if Thieves are unaffected by the trait? I mean seriously, 1v1 isn’t something the devs support AFAIK, so it could be entirely unimportant. I’d rather have the trait work well against less annoying classes and worry about thieves later.

I would never take power block in pve unless it affected bosses. I had no idea that it formerly bypassed defiant….that would be enough to make me take it for pve.

Carighan.6758:

Actually, would it be a big problem if Thieves are unaffected by the trait? I mean seriously, 1v1 isn’t something the devs support AFAIK, so it could be entirely unimportant. I’d rather have the trait work well against less annoying classes and worry about thieves later.

1v1 balance affects game balance. While the devs don’t inherently balance for 1v1, 1v1 matchups affect other things. In this case, thieves are the hardcounter for mesmers and are the specific reason why mesmers aren’t seen a lot in the meta, so making this trait not work specifically against thieves (1 class out of 8 ) is absurd.

How about it strips stability on CC along with the normal effect, removing the ICD? While we have a good amount of boon-strip, it might make it more viable if it can just go straight to stability, ignoring other boons[unless blocked by Aegis]. However, it does not interrupt+strip stability, but strips stability instead of interrupt so long as stability is there, and super-rupts so long as there’s no stability.

Dondagora.9645:

How about it strips stability on CC along with the normal effect, removing the ICD? While we have a good amount of boon-strip, it might make it more viable if it can just go straight to stability, ignoring other boons[unless blocked by Aegis]. However, it does not interrupt+strip stability, but strips stability instead of interrupt so long as stability is there, and super-rupts so long as there’s no stability.

• Power Block: Remove target stability on disabled. Enemy skills that you interrupt have an increased CD.

This treats stability like defiance to Mesmers with Power Block. Something I’ve often wanted to be the case. I suppose attaching it to a trait is a less universal approach to having it in the game.

Carighan.6758:

Actually, would it be a big problem if Thieves are unaffected by the trait? I mean seriously, 1v1 isn’t something the devs support AFAIK, so it could be entirely unimportant. I’d rather have the trait work well against less annoying classes and worry about thieves later.

What it does mean is that Thieves are granted Grandsmaster immunity irregardless of any actual skill they have, trait they take, utility they use, or counter measure they need to put in play. They get this immunity based purely on game design and thief mechanics but for no genuine reason. This creates a disadvantage for any Mesmer thinking of taking Power Block, decreases build diversity (especially given thieves power over Mesmers), and assures people are going to trait Grandmaster elsewhere. A thief isnt immune to a 4x IP power shatter, for example. In fact if you can land it it’s ultimately effective. There’s no reason Power Block shouldn’t be as effective in it’s own way, and in fact needs to be.

ODB.6891:

I would never take power block in pve unless it affected bosses. I had no idea that it formerly bypassed defiant….that would be enough to make me take it for pve.

You know, it still effects bosses now. You just need to coordinate the removal of defiant first.

That said it’s PvE. Who cares. Seriously, just stack and spam 1. Oh and spam F for your loot thereafter.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Dondagora.9645:

How about it strips stability on CC along with the normal effect, removing the ICD? While we have a good amount of boon-strip, it might make it more viable if it can just go straight to stability, ignoring other boons[unless blocked by Aegis]. However, it does not interrupt+strip stability, but strips stability instead of interrupt so long as stability is there, and super-rupts so long as there’s no stability.

• Power Block: Remove target stability on disabled. Enemy skills that you interrupt have an increased CD.

This treats stability like defiance to Mesmers with Power Block. Something I’ve often wanted to be the case. I suppose attaching it to a trait is a less universal approach to having it in the game.

True, but how about this: Traiting Power Block will double Defiance Stacks removed, helping mesmers to specialize in PvE control.

Power Block : 100% chance on interrupt to put all enemy skills on a 1scd.

Imagine this, you get the daze and for 1 second they can’t use any skills, that’s strong enough to warrant a GM trait but not game breaking, after all they can still move so it’s like a weaker stun.

Benjamin.8237:

Power Block : 100% chance on interrupt to put all enemy skills on a 1scd.

Imagine this, you get the daze and for 1 second they can’t use any skills, that’s strong enough to warrant a GM trait but not game breaking, after all they can still move so it’s like a weaker stun.

That’s the same thing as a normal daze…

Fay.2357:

1v1 balance affects game balance. While the devs don’t inherently balance for 1v1, 1v1 matchups affect other things. In this case, thieves are the hardcounter for mesmers and are the specific reason why mesmers aren’t seen a lot in the meta, so making this trait not work specifically against thieves (1 class out of 8 ) is absurd.

Why not use it for more interesting class balance though, by providing a different GM trait, or even a different class, which readily hardcounters the thieves trying to hardcounter the mesmers?

Dondagora.9645:

Benjamin.8237:

Power Block : 100% chance on interrupt to put all enemy skills on a 1scd.

Imagine this, you get the daze and for 1 second they can’t use any skills, that’s strong enough to warrant a GM trait but not game breaking, after all they can still move so it’s like a weaker stun.

That’s the same thing as a normal daze…

It would include stun breaks and things like shadow return, phase retreat etc. It’s like Lockdown ++

I feel like the one thing you can’t punish is auto attack spam.

I’d really love a buff that would allow power block to work on auto attacks again. If not, lets go with the next best thing… 5s weakness on interrupt. Or steal boons on interrupt (which should really go to a rework of furious interruption)

or better yet.. Power block allows you to see enemy cast bars. Huzzah!

or lets get trolly.. Power block reverses your movement controls/skill bar for 4 seconds on interrupt (10s ICD)

The trait is unsalvageable. Anet bungled it and it’s over. The intent was a super interrupt, the normal penalty of 5 sec being amplified to 10. Well they showed themselves (again) basically incapable of implementing their vision for a cool mesmer ability/trait/whatever.

Only thing that makes sense now is to ask for a new GM trait to replace it, as this one failed big time.

What would be a really cool GM trait in the domination line? Hmm, well let’s think of all the cool GW1 stuff that has been kittenized and ruined in GW2: We had backfire, empathy, etc, which became confusion, which was nerfed into the ground and then given to other classes in better forms and then to everyone on a rune set. So that takes out a whole lot of the punishment possibilities from GW1.

Wastrel’s hexes have become a pathetic 5 pointer in Dom.

Auenerism and the mana drain abilities were also awesome, but no mana so those are out.

Here is why CI is the best lockdown trait: It always works and it has no internal cd. Either of those is a deal breaker, as we see from Furious interruption (icd), CS(% chance to apply stun) and Powerblock(icd and doesn’t apply to an entire class).

So whatever GM ends up replacing the truly useless PB, it should have no icd (any icd on an “on interrupt” ability is just kittenin kittened) and it whatever the on interrupt effect is it should always work, no CS stupidity.

No RnG please, and make it work on all classes. Don’t really care beyond that.
It’s a tough thing to drum up because of the way skills work in the game, but until they do, it’ll remain useless unfortunately.

I’m thinking about something like 33% (or 20%) chance of apply 1s daze upon clone death (range 240, maximum 2 targets if 33% chance to proc or 3-4 if 20%). It won’t boost people’s complain on condition PU since having both GM traits removes the possibility of DE. It also serves the purpose of punishing bad gameplay from opponents, as well as allowing more accessible cc which is the defining role of mesmer.

It also allows some hybrid builds with other clone death conditions and halting strike, so popular mesmer amulet choice is no longer just rabid or zerker. Thus promoting build diversities just like a GM trait should be. It may (emphasis on may) also be beneficial in zerg situations where people wish clone death would proc direct damage and CC for tagging. That’s probably less appealing after AoE was introduced to offensive mantras, though having accessible cc while mantra is in CD is nonetheless welcome.

Not necessary OP since the chance of procing is quite low and force procing it with endurance and DE may not pay off in the long run. Also with the evade-able changes in clone death trait and 240 range limitations there are still counters to this trait. And it can’t be taken in with CS for accessible stuns so you probably still have less hard CC than a hammer warrior.

It may also be a key trait in giving mesmer some breathing space against thieves, since many thief autos are cleaving. While at the same time it still allows thieves to deliver some decisive blows against mesmer like backstab and heartseeker etc.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I feel like the one thing you can’t punish is auto attack spam.

I’d really love a buff that would allow power block to work on auto attacks again. If not, lets go with the next best thing… 5s weakness on interrupt. Or steal boons on interrupt (which should really go to a rework of furious interruption)

or better yet.. Power block allows you to see enemy cast bars. Huzzah!

or lets get trolly.. Power block reverses your movement controls/skill bar for 4 seconds on interrupt (10s ICD)

Maybe remove cripple from CI and add weakness?
And put confusion on power block??

:) Just thinking bout it makes me so happy,

It shouldn’t have an internal CD. It should effect AA.

Those two simple changes would make it viable even with it not effecting thieves. The ICD makes it almost completely non-viable especially when it’s next to CS. The PB nerf was way too severe.

If anything was added, I would love something like Weakness being applied on interrupt. We have enough boon stripping. Let’s not be greedy and suggest this bypass stability.

MailMail.6534:

It shouldn’t have an internal CD. It should effect AA.

Those two simple changes would make it viable even with it not effecting thieves. The ICD makes it almost completely non-viable especially when it’s next to CS. The PB nerf was way too severe.

If anything was added, I would love something like Weakness being applied on interrupt. We have enough boon stripping. Let’s not be greedy and suggest this bypass stability.

I feel like it should have a soft effect and a hard effect if this were the case.

So the increased CD on interrupt, and the weakness would be on disabled. That way weakness will always proc on push/pull/daze/stun etc even if you miss the interrupt.

I agree with ross guaranteed weakness would remove the rng part, and still make the trait viable. You should make a bountiful disillusionment remake too, i think its too lackluster compared to CI and PU

Ross Biddle.2367:

ODB.6891:

I would never take power block in pve unless it affected bosses. I had no idea that it formerly bypassed defiant….that would be enough to make me take it for pve.

You know, it still effects bosses now. You just need to coordinate the removal of defiant first.

That said it’s PvE. Who cares. Seriously, just stack and spam 1. Oh and spam F for your loot thereafter.

Real mature answer there..but whatever. I could say the same thing about pvp, wvw, whatever. I guess I should expect responses like that from kids.

ODB.6891:

Ross Biddle.2367:

ODB.6891:

I would never take power block in pve unless it affected bosses. I had no idea that it formerly bypassed defiant….that would be enough to make me take it for pve.

You know, it still effects bosses now. You just need to coordinate the removal of defiant first.

That said it’s PvE. Who cares. Seriously, just stack and spam 1. Oh and spam F for your loot thereafter.

Real mature answer there..but whatever. I could say the same thing about pvp, wvw, whatever. I guess I should expect responses like that from kids.

To be fair, I’m all for creating relevant features and mechanics for any/all game modes. So I hear you in that regard.

Of course if you’re gonna just stack and spam 1 in pvp or wvw, compares to pve the results are going to be very different. :p

take the name of the trait and make it like it means
power block

put your enemy power/condition on 33% for 5 sec so no need on cd , effect thieves also
give the mesmer few seconds of dmg reduction or prevent the enemy executing powerful attacks while in this stance.

Hrm, interesting concept but I’d go a step further:

Power Block
Your daze effects last 400% longer but no longer interrupt their target or prevent ability usage. Instead, any skill used while under the effect of Daze reduces total Power, Condition Damage or Ferocity by 15% for 5 seconds, stacking. The stat drained depends on whether the skill dealt direct damage, dealt a critical hit or applied a condition. Multiple effects can happen.

Carighan.6758:

Hrm, interesting concept but I’d go a step further:

Power Block
Your daze effects last 400% longer but no longer interrupt their target or prevent ability usage. Instead, any skill used while under the effect of Daze reduces total Power, Condition Damage or Ferocity by 15% for 5 seconds, stacking. The stat drained depends on whether the skill dealt direct damage, dealt a critical hit or applied a condition. Multiple effects can happen.

maybe too strong as it can stack so ppl just spam it …

but i really miss the gw1 mesmer concept power block/ interrupt as in gw2 it just another zerk concept with powerful combos and nothing else

My thoughts on OP’s problems:

1. Cooldown

I didn’t think Power Block had an internal cooldown, maybe I’m wrong on that. It was my understanding that the skill places enemy skills on a 10 second cooldown and that the trait itself has no internal cooldown.

2. Thieves

Power block should work on thieves. The idea that thieves but no other profession get immunity to the trait is pretty much as unbalanced as it gets. The argument that thieves shouldn’t be affected as their skills don’t normally have cooldowns is illogical. Their skills are effectively put on cooldown when they are knocked down, dazed or stunned – why is this any different?

Other Problems

• Power Block on bosses
  IIRC at one point power block would interrupt and put boss skills on cooldown through defiance – this was clearly a bug and it was correct to fix it.

• As it is should Power Block work on autoattacks?
  No. An interrupt mesmer would be good fun but that’s because of the counterplay – choosing what skills to interrupt and having the skill to pull it off. You don’t need skill to interrupt an autoattack and managing to put it on cooldown is devastating to enemy dps. It’s too much.

• As it is should Power Block work on finishers?
  It’s harder to call but I’d probably say no. Players would have to look for the finisher animation and react to it, so that’s a plus over vs autoattacks. However the charge time is so long that it is trivial to interrupt. No – finishers aren’t the only way to defeat enemy players but they are an important feature of the game. A power block mesmer would completely shut down that feature on an enemy team, which again is probably just a little bit too much.

What I would want changed

I don’t think that Arenanet currently realise how much potential Power Block has. If it were powerful enough it would open up a viable, interesting new way to play as a Mesmer. It needs a buff of some kind.

I don’t mind exactly what the effect of the skill ends up being but I do believe it should be proccing on interrupts – that’s the most compelling part of the trait. It should also work on other professions equally – one profession arbitrarily being invulverable to it is silly.

Some Ideas:

Perhaps it could be the same but would now work on thieves, maybe with a longer duration?

Perhaps it would apply a short daze on an interrupt (not including AA or finishers).

Perhaps rather than having a fixed duration it doubles ( or increases by x percent) the cooldown of whatever skill is interrupted, including autoattacks. That way it would still be effective but wouldn’t completely disable autoattacks for an extended period of time. Or maybe autoattack cooldowns would be increased by less – say, 50%. Thief skills could have the initiative cost doubled.

@ neon

The thieves argument should be Common Sense for Anet, making a GM trait that has a class exempted from it is utter bull.

The daze part summarizes what power block is, when you are dazed you cannot use skills but when you are interrupted your attempted skills go on CD. so i dnt think it would work.

Nerfing zerker shatter build, would make all the other builds more appealing. Solving 2 problems with 1 fix.

xDudisx.5914:

Nerfing zerker shatter build, would make all the other builds more appealing. Solving 2 problems with 1 fix.

LEARN TO PLAY

StickerHappy.8052:

xDudisx.5914:

Nerfing zerker shatter build, would make all the other builds more appealing. Solving 2 problems with 1 fix.

LEARN TO PLAY

Seconded.

Fay.2357:

StickerHappy.8052:

xDudisx.5914:

Nerfing zerker shatter build, would make all the other builds more appealing. Solving 2 problems with 1 fix.

LEARN TO PLAY

Seconded.

/sign

Nubu.6148:

Fay.2357:

StickerHappy.8052:

xDudisx.5914:

Nerfing zerker shatter build, would make all the other builds more appealing. Solving 2 problems with 1 fix.

LEARN TO PLAY

Seconded.

/sign

/sign

All they have to do is revert the trait back to the way it was on release. Other than maybe the rez interrupt (and even then I think people were being hysterical) there was nothing wrong with it.

Anet, please revert this skill to how it was before.

EDIT: OOPS necro thread. :( :( :( :/

Ross Biddle.2367:

• 2) Doesn’t effect thieves weapon skills

The second problem is part of a larger issue that Anet needs to look seriously at, and I’m not sure there’s a simple solution the community can provide (except things such as eating initiative etc, which seems outside of the pale of the traits actual function).

The solution to the second problem is trivial: make it put a 10-sec CD on thief 2-5 skills, just like any other skills.

Thieves are designed to be able to spam their skills a bit, but, hey, they also have a lot of varied skills and some reasonable redundancy thanks to their utilities. And, you know, a weapon swap.

The only people I can imagine getting truly wrecked by Power Block are bad thieves from the getgo (folks running D/D or P/D specs getting panicked when C&D goes on cooldown because they’re absolutely married to their rotations).

Not to mention thieves have a built-in way to mitigate Power Block against their most important skills using Consume Plasma.

Necromorph Thread.

Oh well, there are two newer answers here already, guess i can give it an [Illusion of Life] as well

Problem about giving thieves Initiative Skills a honest Cooldown is the guranteed massive QQ that follows (“I CANT HEARTSEEKAAH THROUGH MY SMOKEFIEALLD!!!1! WHY CND ON COOLDOWN THATS OP NERF MESMAH THIEF ALWAYS NERFED NOW MES HARDCOUNTER THIEFCLASS Q_Q”).

In all seriousness, maybe we would have to alter the effect a little regarding Initiative Skills. Instead of setting the interrupted Skill on a set 10 second Cooldown, they could for example

• increase the amount of required Initiative for said skill by another X% of it’s original value for the next 10 seconds following the Interrupt. This way, since the higher iniative-value has to be paid before the skill gets executed, it effectively works as a 10s cooldown as long as the Thief doesn’t have the majority of his Initiative still avaiable. Thieves would have to pay a price for being interrupted, but could still use the Skill depending on their initiative-managment.
• for the next 10 seconds following the interrupt, leave the original Initiative cost of the interrupted skill unchanged, but make the Thief lose additional Initiative after activating it. The main diference to the first idea would be the fact that he can still use the skill at least one time if he got the originally required amount of initiative. There could even be a penalty mechanic added to this, triggering a punishing effect whenever a Thief using the skill affected by Power Block gets down to 0 Initiative by using it.

I don’t believe the problem is that thieves have been given PB immunity by design. Rather it is the way it is due to lazy programing on the devs end.

Of course this has not been stated so I can’t confirm. Whatever the case the reality is the devs need to stop making paper airplanes for five minutes and do their jobs. Of course for that to happen the paper airplane industry would go out of business, and GW2 customers would have nothing to post on the forums about. GG.

[Power Block] How to make it appealing?
Step
#1-Underline Power Bock code
#2-Delete it
#3-Type new code for new trait that actually works vs all classes.
& step #4- Reap the praises from mesmer players for creating an actual smart trait.
Step #5- Then end!

Seriously, just making Power Block hit thief skills 2-5 and the rest is probably fine (maybe also make it work on channels or something).

This is not at all OP because:
1. Having one more not-quite-meta mesmer spec that has a semi-good counter to thieves isn’t gonna leave thieves stuck in the trash heap.
2. Sic ‘Em is already a thing, and it’s pretty great and totally fair. Power-Locking C&D is a more complex version of the same thing, really.
3. Heartseeker spam (if you interrupt Heartseeker) is not at all required to achieve good DPS on a thief.

Random thought: What about Power Block vs. Revenant? Their utility & elite skills won’t have CD. Given how poorly anet handled this trait vs. thiefs, can we really except anything different?

That would make two classes basically immune to the trait.

tetrodoxin.2134:

Random thought: What about Power Block vs. Revenant? Their utility & elite skills won’t have CD. Given how poorly anet handled this trait vs. thiefs, can we really except anything different?

That would make two classes basically immune to the trait.

/facepalm

tetrodoxin.2134:

Random thought: What about Power Block vs. Revenant? Their utility & elite skills won’t have CD. Given how poorly anet handled this trait vs. thiefs, can we really except anything different?

That would make two classes basically immune to the trait.

They need to fix it.

It’s a trivial fix, really.

Not holding my breath, though.

Fay.2357:

tetrodoxin.2134:

Random thought: What about Power Block vs. Revenant? Their utility & elite skills won’t have CD. Given how poorly anet handled this trait vs. thiefs, can we really except anything different?

That would make two classes basically immune to the trait.

/facepalm

Considering that Heals and Weaponskills have a cooldown there will still be something useful to interrupt. But yeah… could be pretty annoying. All those area effects are a nightmare for Mesmers anyway.

I never even thought about this. lol Wow PB gets worse and worse doesn’kitten