Guild Wars 2

I was watching the boons roll up on my status bar and felt they were a little off, so I decided to start counting. These are my findings from 100 consecutive boon applications while standing in the Hall of Monument:

Aegis: IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII (20)
Fury: IIIII II (7)
Might: IIIII IIIII IIIII II (17)
Protection: IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII I (26)
Regeneration: IIIII IIIII II (12)
Retaliation: IIIII IIIII IIIII III (18)
Vigor: (0)

I know it’s not an enormous sample size, but the results still seem a bit imbalanced. At the very least, Vigor should be removed from the tooltip unless someone can prove that it does actually occasionally apply.

I too have felt that the boons from SoI felt a bit off, seemed like Aegis, Might, Protection and Retaliation are heavily favoured. Did a bit of testing myself and stopped once I got 5 Furies. I did actually get Vigour once, seems like it’s just very rare.

Aegis: 26
Fury: 5
Might: 21
Protection: 30
Regeneration: 15
Retaliation: 35
Vigour: 1

Combined with your results, we get:

Aegis: 19.66%
Fury: 5.56%
Might: 16.24%
Protection: 23.93%
Regeneration: 11.54%
Retaliation: 22.65%
Vigour: 0.43%

Think this might be a good time for a suggestion too… why not remove Fury and Might from SoI’s procs? Fury is rare anyway and one stack of Might is just sad. That leaves SoI with just defensive boons, which I think suits it better. Then equalise the proc chances so they’re all 20%.

Also remove Swiftness from Chaos Armour’s random procs please. The original Chaos Armour didn’t have it, it was added when Protection was changed from a random proc into always granted on casting Chaos Armour, which was then reverted back again but Swiftness remained.

Firstly, thanks for gathering this Data. Might have to give stand around one day and take a tally to add to the numbers as well!

I also agree that dropping Might and Fury from the SoI is an excellent idea. It gives it a more definitive feel, and makes the Boonshare builds more fun to use!

Also, as much as I hate to see any source of Swiftness get removed from Mesmer, it does seem out of place on Chaos Armor. So, that’s getting +1 from me as well!

I get that SoI is mostly used for its Swiftness and for its active in boonshare, so people don’t care about the passive; but IMO that’s why we should take a look at the passive and think of ways to improve it.

Thanks for this!

Side note: What if the signet could draw a boon from an enemy near you, similarly to for example Plague Signet which draws Conditions from allies. The cool thing is that Blurred Inscriptions competes against Shattered concentration, so it could provide an alternate form of boon strip?

Embolism.8106:

I too have felt that the boons from SoI felt a bit off, seemed like Aegis, Might, Protection and Retaliation are heavily favoured. Did a bit of testing myself and stopped once I got 5 Furies. I did actually get Vigour once, seems like it’s just very rare.

Aegis: 26
Fury: 5
Might: 21
Protection: 30
Regeneration: 15
Retaliation: 35
Vigour: 1

Combined with your results, we get:

Aegis: 19.66%
Fury: 5.56%
Might: 16.24%
Protection: 23.93%
Regeneration: 11.54%
Retaliation: 22.65%
Vigour: 0.43%

Think this might be a good time for a suggestion too… why not remove Fury and Might from SoI’s procs? Fury is rare anyway and one stack of Might is just sad. That leaves SoI with just defensive boons, which I think suits it better. Then equalise the proc chances so they’re all 20%.

Also remove Swiftness from Chaos Armour’s random procs please. The original Chaos Armour didn’t have it, it was added when Protection was changed from a random proc into always granted on casting Chaos Armour, which was then reverted back again but Swiftness remained.

I had almost forgotten about the chaos armor swiftness by now, but i really agree. Maybe make a thread on it to draw attention? I think many people (including Devs) have forgotten. At the moment, chaos armor isn’t even used in PvP by the large majority of players.

Just erase retaliation (it has no place on a class like mesmer and is virtually useless in Pve).

Either reduce the boon interval to 5 seconds or make it pulse 2 different boons every 10 seconds.

Nachyochez.9758:

Firstly, thanks for gathering this Data. Might have to give stand around one day and take a tally to add to the numbers as well!

I also agree that dropping Might and Fury from the SoI is an excellent idea. It gives it a more definitive feel, and makes the Boonshare builds more fun to use!

Also, as much as I hate to see any source of Swiftness get removed from Mesmer, it does seem out of place on Chaos Armor. So, that’s getting +1 from me as well!

Why does it seem out place with Swiftness for Chaos Armour?

I wouldn’t like to see that kind of nerf to my build (staff/sceptre+torch) without anything that could give some kind of swiftness as many of my utility skills also have Ethereal fields that will proc Chaos Armour when blasted with finisher and not every Mesmer would like go for Chronomancer (trait) which would give 25% movement speed as Minor.

Chaos Armour are meant to have defensive capabilities which both Swiftness and Protection provide through their buffs which help to mitigate danger and damage.

Embolism.8106:

Also remove Swiftness from Chaos Armour’s random procs please. The original Chaos Armour didn’t have it, it was added when Protection was changed from a random proc into always granted on casting Chaos Armour, which was then reverted back again but Swiftness remained.

I do think it fits as all boons help to avoid damage. If anything, Chaos Armor should have this selection:

• Protection
• Resistance (After all, basically super-protection against conditions)
• Vigor (helps dodge more)
• Swiftness (helps avoid attacks and AEs more)
• Aegis (because well, duh)

ShadowCatz.8437:

Nachyochez.9758:

Firstly, thanks for gathering this Data. Might have to give stand around one day and take a tally to add to the numbers as well!

I also agree that dropping Might and Fury from the SoI is an excellent idea. It gives it a more definitive feel, and makes the Boonshare builds more fun to use!

Also, as much as I hate to see any source of Swiftness get removed from Mesmer, it does seem out of place on Chaos Armor. So, that’s getting +1 from me as well!

Why does it seem out place with Swiftness for Chaos Armour?

I wouldn’t like to see that kind of nerf to my build (staff/sceptre+torch) without anything that could give some kind of swiftness as many of my utility skills also have Ethereal fields that will proc Chaos Armour when blasted with finisher and not every Mesmer would like go for Chronomancer (trait) which would give 25% movement speed as Minor.

Chaos Armour are meant to have defensive capabilities which both Swiftness and Protection provide through their buffs which help to mitigate danger and damage.

Having Swiftness as a possible proc means there’s only a 1/3 chance you’d get Protection when hit. Without Swiftness the choice is only between Regeneration and Protection, meaning 50% chance to get Prot; or 100% chance if Illusionary Membrane is up.

I don’t think anyone can disagree that having a higher chance to get Prot is better than the alternative, especially when the alternative isn’t that helpful when you’re being whaled on.

Also, the original design of the Staff was that each boon/condition skill would apply one less possible boon than condition. Together they were supposed to cover all possible boons and conditions at the time (except Vigour and Immobilise: Stability and Quickness weren’t boons then; Resistance, Slow and Torment didn’t exist and Daze used to be Fear).