Guild Wars 2

title says it all.. why shouldn’t I be able to transfer 5 seconds of fear to a thief if he is stupid enough to f1 fear me while its up, every time I fight one its the same thing with no consequences to them. why shouldn’t I be able to fear that terormancer when he condi bombs me and tries to fear chain me..

why cant I take risk vs reward and chuck fear me back at that warrior when he pops it right in the middle of a fight.

basically fear is a condi plague transfers condis im sure its possible even if its also a stun breaker..

ozzy.8059:

basically fear is a condi plague transfers condis im sure its possible even if its also a stun breaker..

Actually condition transfers can transfer fear but only if the skill is precast.
Your approach to Plague Signet is rather problematic because the solution to that would either be:

1. Remove the stun break ability but it remains an instant cast skill.
An overall nerf at the cost of specifically being able to transfer fear.

2. Change fear to no longer count as stun, so it can’t be stunbroken.
That wouldn’t make any sense and fear would be op.

3. Change the way stunbreaks work to allow certain skills to execute their utility before removing stun.
Basically another loophole specifically designed to allow a fear transfer on Plague Signet. So yeah… probably not going to happen.

ozzy.8059:

why shouldn’t I be able to transfer 5 seconds of fear to a thief if he is stupid enough to f1 fear me while its up, every time I fight one its the same thing with no consequences to them.

Simple solution: use a different skill against thieves.

ozzy.8059:

why shouldn’t I be able to fear that terormancer when he condi bombs me and tries to fear chain me.

You can use Plague Signet and then a different skill to fear them..?

flow.6043:

ozzy.8059:

basically fear is a condi plague transfers condis im sure its possible even if its also a stun breaker..

Actually condition transfers can transfer fear but only if the skill is precast.
Your approach to Plague Signet is rather problematic because the solution to that would either be:

1. Remove the stun break ability but it remains an instant cast skill.
An overall nerf at the cost of specifically being able to transfer fear.

2. Change fear to no longer count as stun, so it can’t be stunbroken.
That wouldn’t make any sense and fear would be op.

3. Change the way stunbreaks work to allow certain skills to execute their utility before removing stun.
Basically another loophole specifically designed to allow a fear transfer on Plague Signet. So yeah… probably not going to happen.

ozzy.8059:

why shouldn’t I be able to transfer 5 seconds of fear to a thief if he is stupid enough to f1 fear me while its up, every time I fight one its the same thing with no consequences to them.

Simple solution: use a different skill against thieves.

ozzy.8059:

why shouldn’t I be able to fear that terormancer when he condi bombs me and tries to fear chain me.

You can use Plague Signet and then a different skill to fear them..?

Immobilize doesn’t count as a stun. Doesn’t seem much different other than the fact we can trait it to do damage…. although I’m pretty sure there are classes and skills that cause immobilize to have other effects that do damage….

NeXeD.3042:

Immobilize doesn’t count as a stun. Doesn’t seem much different …

A stun interrupts and disables all skills (except for instant casts), Immobilized does neither.

flow.6043:

NeXeD.3042:

Immobilize doesn’t count as a stun. Doesn’t seem much different …

A stun interrupts and disables all skills (except for instant casts), Immobilized does neither.

Thats true, I do agree with the op though maybe they could somehow make the transfer happen before the stunbreak?

I personally think it’s fine how it is. The only reasons that seem to be highlighted are “I want to be able to do this because I don’t like when these things happen to me”. Breaking the fear instantly from a Thief is enough, imo, as it isn’t that difficult to dodge unless they’re in stealth, and if a Terrormancer chain fears you, break it after they use 2-3 of their fears in a row.

I don’t see how taking Plague Signet is a risk, since it’s already a good utility in my opinion. It just seems like you want more reward because you don’t like when you get feared.

Cogbyrn.7283:

I personally think it’s fine how it is. The only reasons that seem to be highlighted are “I want to be able to do this because I don’t like when these things happen to me”. Breaking the fear instantly from a Thief is enough, imo, as it isn’t that difficult to dodge unless they’re in stealth, and if a Terrormancer chain fears you, break it after they use 2-3 of their fears in a row.

I don’t see how taking Plague Signet is a risk, since it’s already a good utility in my opinion. It just seems like you want more reward because you don’t like when you get feared.

Plague signet is a risk because it draws condis onto you…. I don’t know if it’s happened to me yet but it’s possible for it to draw a fear from an ally forcing you to either burn the signet or another stunbreak or eat the fear. Could also immobilize etc.

If someone else was feared and you grabbed it, then the signet did its job of supporting a teammate and breaking their stun for them, most likely a good thing if they are getting focused. Also, due to the time it ticks, you often just get a partial condition from someone, so you might be feared for a half-second or so, not really necessitating the use of a stun break. Odds of you pulling a fear off of someone at its max Terrormancer-chained duration are low, I’d say, and even if you do, then being able to take and break that is really solid.

I suppose I don’t see how letting Plague Signet suddenly transfer Fear is the “reward”. The reward already exists: you break stuns, and transfer all of your conditions onto an enemy. That’s pretty amazingly good. Transferring Fear is just more reward that I don’t think it needs.

Cogbyrn.7283:

If someone else was feared and you grabbed it, then the signet did its job of supporting a teammate and breaking their stun for them, most likely a good thing if they are getting focused. Also, due to the time it ticks, you often just get a partial condition from someone, so you might be feared for a half-second or so, not really necessitating the use of a stun break. Odds of you pulling a fear off of someone at its max Terrormancer-chained duration are low, I’d say, and even if you do, then being able to take and break that is really solid.

I suppose I don’t see how letting Plague Signet suddenly transfer Fear is the “reward”. The reward already exists: you break stuns, and transfer all of your conditions onto an enemy. That’s pretty amazingly good. Transferring Fear is just more reward that I don’t think it needs.

it’s not used in high level play because it screws the class that already has focus issues….I don’t think changing it so the transfer happens before the stunbreak would make it godly or anything, but this conversation is pointless anyway the last thing anyone in this game besides a necro main wants is a necro to have another fear.

High-level tPvP is a niche within a niche. In a game with options, high-level competitive play is going to narrow those options down to the ones that fulfill the desired role hardest. Are wells used in high-level competitive tPvP? If not, then you could make arguments about how they need to be changed, while they already have a strong role in ZvZ/GvG out in WvW.

EDIT – And if wells are used in high-level competitive tPvP, then <insert some other example of something that works somewhere else in the game but not competitively (sorry for the laziness)>

In short, “it’s not used in high level play” is not necessarily a reason to change something in a game this expansive.

That aside, like you said, this change wouldn’t make the signet godly. In fact, I’d argue that it wouldn’t even introduce it into high level play, because the mechanic that does the screwing is still there. It seems like a request that was created just because a few instances of the game were frustrating and the player wanted to fire back stronger than simply breaking the Fear, and I don’t subscribe to that type of seemingly emotional balance, personally.

Cogbyrn.7283:

High-level tPvP is a niche within a niche. In a game with options, high-level competitive play is going to narrow those options down to the ones that fulfill the desired role hardest. Are wells used in high-level competitive tPvP? If not, then you could make arguments about how they need to be changed, while they already have a strong role in ZvZ/GvG out in WvW.

In short, “it’s not used in high level play” is not necessarily a reason to change something in a game this expansive.

That aside, like you said, this change wouldn’t make the signet godly. In fact, I’d argue that it wouldn’t even introduce it into high level play, because the mechanic that does the screwing is still there. It seems like a request that was created just because a few instances of the game were frustrating and the player wanted to fire back stronger than simply breaking the Fear, and I don’t subscribe to that type of seemingly emotional balance, personally.

The signet is supposed to transfer conditions. It doesn’t transfer this particular condition…. sounds less like a little kid not getting his way and more like a player sincerely wondering why it doesn’t transfer like all the other conditions. We know the reason is because it’s a stunbreak I don’t know if it’s possible to make the transfer happen before the stun break…. but assuming op or I for that matter think it should transfer because we were emotionally frustrated is unfair and would make you look like a jerk =(

I can see that it’s a conflicting definition. It follows appropriate Breaks Stun rules, but doesn’t follow the Transfer Condition rule in this case. You personally didn’t seem emotionally involved in the suggestion, but the OP:

why shouldn’t I be able to transfer 5 seconds of fear to a thief if he is stupid enough to f1 fear me while its up, every time I fight one its the same thing with no consequences to them. why shouldn’t I be able to fear that terormancer when he condi bombs me and tries to fear chain me..

In these situations, breaking the fear instantly isn’t enough? And transferring all of the conditions from the condi bomb back to the Terrormancer while simultaneously breaking the Fear and potentially mitigating thousands of Fear damage alone in the process isn’t enough?

Syntactic definition arguments aside, the above sounds like he just wants to stick it to a few things that frustrate him, not clean up tooltips or make the game easier to understand.

I agree with you though, if Fear was that easily transferred, Thieves would grab their pitchforks and storm the castle, because it basically means their steal ability would most likely get them killed instead of forcing a CC break like it does now. As much as I think Thieves should re-appear when they try to use their stolen ability (so you can actually dodge it instead of getting stealth-feared into a Backstab, since it does no damage technically), I don’t think this should be designed such that they can’t use it.

???

It doesn’t transfer the fear because you break the fear on activating the signet because it is a stun break – the fear is gone so you can not transfer it

It’s that simple not sure why you guys are writing multiple paragraphs and walls of text

The only way to “fix” this is to make the transfer happen before the stun break which defeats the purpose of a stun break as it is meant to be instant cast

If you changed it to transfer before the stunbreak, wouldn’t it transfer a stun as well (not just fear, but a standard stun).

I think it would be more valuable for the class as a whole to leave the functionality the same but improve the overall value of the signet another way.

Things like reducing the cooldown or adjusting the passive’s range so you wouldn’t pull from so far away.

ps. You can steal fear from an ally if people were still wondering if that was possible.

Narkodx.1472:

???

It doesn’t transfer the fear because you break the fear on activating the signet because it is a stun break – the fear is gone so you can not transfer it

It’s that simple not sure why you guys are writing multiple paragraphs and walls of text

The only way to “fix” this is to make the transfer happen before the stun break which defeats the purpose of a stun break as it is meant to be instant cast

we get it just fine…. and that was my suggestion. I dunno seems pretty legit of a question even if op is emotional or not I don’t see why it’s not possible for it to transfer the fear before it breaks the stun…. or maybe fear shouldn’t count as a stun.

If Fear didn’t count as a stun, none of the Stun Breaks would remove Fear, and Terrormancer would be literally insane.

Also, Stun/Daze aren’t technically considered Conditions (they don’t benefit from condi duration iirc), so no, those wouldn’t transfer as well.

I don’t see why they couldn’t change it so it transfers all conditions before breaking the stun. The question is, why would they. I don’t see a reason other than some people think it makes more syntactic sense.

Is that change going to fix it and make it fulfill a role it doesn’t already fill? Or is it just going to make a couple situations more forgiving for the player when it already takes care of the Fear in the first place?

Cogbyrn.7283:

If Fear didn’t count as a stun, none of the Stun Breaks would remove Fear, and Terrormancer would be literally insane.

Also, Stun/Daze aren’t technically considered Conditions (they don’t benefit from condi duration iirc), so no, those wouldn’t transfer as well.

I don’t see why they couldn’t change it so it transfers all conditions before breaking the stun. The question is, why would they. I don’t see a reason other than some people think it makes more syntactic sense.

Is that change going to fix it and make it fulfill a role it doesn’t already fill? Or is it just going to make a couple situations more forgiving for the player when it already takes care of the Fear in the first place?

As it is stunbreakers and condi clears break fear….. that’s alot of skills that negate fear.

NeXeD.3042:

Cogbyrn.7283:

If Fear didn’t count as a stun, none of the Stun Breaks would remove Fear, and Terrormancer would be literally insane.

Also, Stun/Daze aren’t technically considered Conditions (they don’t benefit from condi duration iirc), so no, those wouldn’t transfer as well.

I don’t see why they couldn’t change it so it transfers all conditions before breaking the stun. The question is, why would they. I don’t see a reason other than some people think it makes more syntactic sense.

Is that change going to fix it and make it fulfill a role it doesn’t already fill? Or is it just going to make a couple situations more forgiving for the player when it already takes care of the Fear in the first place?

As it is stunbreakers and condi clears break fear….. that’s alot of skills that negate fear.

That’s very true. However, there are also a lot of ways to apply fear, such as:

• Corrupt Boon on Stability
• Spectral Wall
• Doom
• Reaper’s Mark
• Dark Path traited to corrupt Stability (which is hilarious when a Warrior pops Balanced Stance to negate a fear, only to be instantly feared again when the Stab they used is corrupted with their swiftness)
• Nightmare Runes on-hit
• On CC (traited)

And technically, you can bring all of that in 1 build. Plus, I believe Stuns simply overwrite the duration of the previous stun, whereas I believe Fear adds on duration like any other condition, making it easier to chain for longer by being more efficient.

If they changed it so Plague Signet transferred Fear, I wouldn’t be up in arms or anything. I just feel like they have bigger design/balance fish to fry.

Cogbyrn.7283:

NeXeD.3042:

Cogbyrn.7283:

If Fear didn’t count as a stun, none of the Stun Breaks would remove Fear, and Terrormancer would be literally insane.

Also, Stun/Daze aren’t technically considered Conditions (they don’t benefit from condi duration iirc), so no, those wouldn’t transfer as well.

I don’t see why they couldn’t change it so it transfers all conditions before breaking the stun. The question is, why would they. I don’t see a reason other than some people think it makes more syntactic sense.

Is that change going to fix it and make it fulfill a role it doesn’t already fill? Or is it just going to make a couple situations more forgiving for the player when it already takes care of the Fear in the first place?

As it is stunbreakers and condi clears break fear….. that’s alot of skills that negate fear.

That’s very true. However, there are also a lot of ways to apply fear, such as:

• Corrupt Boon on Stability
• Spectral Wall
• Doom
• Reaper’s Mark
• Dark Path traited to corrupt Stability (which is hilarious when a Warrior pops Balanced Stance to negate a fear, only to be instantly feared again when the Stab they used is corrupted with their swiftness)
• Nightmare Runes on-hit
• On CC (traited)

And technically, you can bring all of that in 1 build. Plus, I believe Stuns simply overwrite the duration of the previous stun, whereas I believe Fear adds on duration like any other condition, making it easier to chain for longer by being more efficient.

If they changed it so Plague Signet transferred Fear, I wouldn’t be up in arms or anything. I just feel like they have bigger design/balance fish to fry.

Not saying it’s important….. it’s just interesting necromancers have a skill that people complain so much about yet due to its design is literally the easiest thing to remove in game due to it being counted as a condition and a stun. It’s actually quite interesting that terrormancer is still a good spec even though its so easy to hard counter. But if they changed it to just being a condition or just being a stun it would make it so we wouldn’t have to build for having a million cover conditions. Maybe they could lower the damage of fear even though they’ve already done that too.

yes there is a hint of emotion attached to this post but the point still stands.. necro has no other instant condi removals /transfers, dagger and staff both rely on opponent stupidity and dumb luck to hit after you are feared. Most thief specs I do not have a problem with in a 1v1 situation as long as I have most of my skills off cd when they show up its when there is a group fight that the problem arises

a thief and warrior for example can easily keep me feared till I die as they run behind me happily swinging away. its either take 2 stun breaks that only put me at a disadvantage because unlike other professions stun breaks ours does not give any fancy side effects like stealth/teleport/invuln/clone etc.. just here is some protection… or in signets case nothing if I am not getting killed by conditions so yeah.. if it could transfer fear in this situation I could at least disrupt what is going on and survive a bit longer instead of just oh… they got me what a shame.

I think you’re undervaluing the strength of using Spectral Armor and then jumping into DS. You’ll have protection, you won’t be taking damage to your health pool, and every second someone deals a new application of damage, you’ll be gaining more LF. Against a lower number of players who aren’t using their largest burst abilities, you very often float for 8 or so seconds, not really taking any meaningful damage.

I have just always bucketed Fear as a condi you deal with via Stun Breakers, like the rest of the CC in the game. I wouldn’t ever try to use my condi clears/transfers to counter Fear, because that isn’t what most were intended for. Plague Signet is a special case because it’s designed to break stun and give you a full-clear out, but it’s on a fairly long cooldown and has the drawback of pulling some pretty nasty condis from teammates.

If there is a group fight, and you use your cooldowns, then the team trains you, that isn’t necessarily a problem, that’s the other team capitalizing on your weakest time. If they are doing that, then your team should also be coordinating against their push to keep you safe/peel/etc. If a Thief just happens to see you in WvW and your CDs are down in a group fight when he engages, then that’s just life. If it’s a group fight and suddenly your group has a Thief in the middle, many times people will turn and burn if you can make a few timely dodges and sit in DS for a spell.

If being feared until you die is your biggest weakness, then yes, bring two stun breakers. Utilities are designed to be flexible, either filling holes in your build or making your strengths stronger. Plague Signet doesn’t need to dump a bunch of damaging conditions to be useful. If a class has no conditions they apply, dropping it to break a stun is still good. If they apply control conditions (immobs, etc.), ,then dropping those as well can still turn the tide.

While I agree it would be funny and would serve them right for having a longer duration fear than us, isn’t this a pointless discussion? Plague Signet needs LOS to transfer, and any decent thief would be behind you getting his flanking bonus while you’re feared. So it would break stun but wouldn’t transfer condis anyway.
Anyway, conditionmancers are a very hard matchup for most thief builds already. We don’t exactly need any more tricks to use against them. Even though they WOULD deserve it, the smarmy fear-stealing goits! :p

manveruppd.7601:

While I agree it would be funny and would serve them right for having a longer duration fear than us, isn’t this a pointless discussion? Plague Signet needs LOS to transfer, and any decent thief would be behind you getting his flanking bonus while you’re feared. So it would break stun but wouldn’t transfer condis anyway.

That’s actually incorrect (just tested on a dummy). Plague Signet transfers conditions to people who are behind your character. You mostly only have to worry about Aegis and dodges, as they fixed it a while back to transfer Blind instead of just missing.

Really? They must have changed it then! I used to have trouble getting it to transfer anything, even when I wasn’t blinded. Opens up a few interesting options like using warhorn instead of dagger I guess… Stun, better LF generation, quicker moving from point to point.
Mind you, you can’t juke people with PS like you can with Spectral Walk…

Yeah, I’ve always been a super huge fan of the utility, then they fixed blind and I was an even bigger fan. You may also be right, it could very well be that Plague Signet did not transfer behind you at some point, but it does now, and it’s D-Y-N-A-M-I-T-E.

I guess that’s my biggest issue with giving Plague Signet more power. I already think it’s an excellent utility with a downside and an upside, and used properly it can win you a fight. Watching a Condi Thief kill him/herself because they don’t see that their 8 condi stacks from Perplexity Runes are back on them instantly is just… it brings a tear to my eye. To also give it the power to pass Fear back? I personally prefer it be a stun break only with respect to Fear.

Well there’s just no way to have it both ways: if it breaks stun it’ll remove the fear before it can transfer it. Unless, of course, you’re also dazed/knocked down/whatever, and it breaks the other CC first. Making it transfer condis BEFORE breaking the stun will make it work differently to every other stunbreak skill in the game. That just rubs me the wrong way. Everyone else woudl complain, and I wouldn’t blame them.

I’m definitely gonna try it though now that I know it’s an unlimited transfer! Bye bye dagger offhand, it’s been fun! :p Hello delicious Locust Swarm life force generation and the ability to interrupt warriors stomping while in Berserker Stance!

well… a condi necro is free food against a smart thief.. they have blind on demand and blind used right will nullify all the fear procs combine that with the amount of dodges they have and teleports if a thief is getting feared its a bad thief. not to mention they have all the condi clears they need…

there is a post on the thief forum where thief users themselves are saying condi necro is the easiest thing to kill, see if I can find it

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/sd-thief-how-to-kill

Umm… the thread you linked is actually full of people saying thieves are weak against condi necros, and that has been my experience too! Not to say that a smart thief can’t kill me, they can, but if I’m facing someone of similar skill level to me I’ll win unless they get the jump on me while all my skills are on cooldown. Even the impossible to pin down s/d thief with their constant evades struggles!