Guild Wars 2

Hi, Bhawb and me did some testing to find out the exact priorities of boon removal for every skill we have (well except that minion thingy but who has teh nerve to test that and also, who uses it?)

Corrupt Boon:
Highest 5:
Protection, Fury, Swiftness, Might, Regeneration

afterwards: Vigor>Aegis>Stability>Retaliation

Well of Corruption:
Protection>Swiftness>Regeneration>Retaliation>Fury>Might>Vigor>Aegis>Stability

Path of Corruption:

Highest 2:
Protection, Swiftness

Afterwards:
Retaliation>Regeneration>Fury>Might>Vigor>Aegis>Stability

Axe #3:
Will be blocked by Aegis
Swiftness>Stability>Protection>Regeneration>Might>Retaliation>Fury>Vigor

Focus #5:
Will remove Aegis AND 3 other Boons, however behaves irregulary and does neitehr follow a set order nor removes according to application. Further extensive testing series would be required or maybe some insight from a dev.

+1, really good to know for balance-talk reasons, as the lack of stability priority is a big weakness, also the lower priority of might (CB being the only one to reliably remove might) is a big deal for the current meta.

Am I seeing this right? Corrupt Boon turns Stability before Retaliation?

Bhawb.7408:

CB being the only one to reliably remove might) is a big deal for the current meta.

But usually other players don’t have a full bar of boons, so even if might has a low priority it’s a common boon to be removed.

Blackmoa.3186:

Axe #3:
Will be blocked by Aegis
Swiftness>Stability>Protection>Regeneration>Might>Retaliation>Fury>Vigor

I haven’t done any detailed testing on this, but since I use the axe all the time I’m 100% sure that stability has a lower priority here.

Might isn’t common to be removed. If your fighting those eles and warriors might is almost always one of the last boons you can get corrupted with anything other than corrupt boon. I’m sure it’s like that with some other classes too but I notice it more against those.

ye might is hard to remove with anything but corrupt bonn ebcuase fury, swiftness and regeneration are just all over the place aswell and have higher priority

Which is why those celestial eles and warriors with strength runes were such an issue before the strength and pirate rune nerf. Well they are still sort of an issue but whatever.

I think with current meta it is important to get the order the same for all skills. If they show it in that order it will be even better.

I think they could allow the player to set their own priorities.

Kupinoodle.7194:

I think they could allow the player to set their own priorities.

Could be dangerous, because then it means Stability is never kept if your enemy can remove boons.

FILO as mentioned in BoC. Signed.

Let’s face it, with all the passive boon procs in the game now, our boon corruptions have become much more situational than before. So many times I cast Dark Path on someone who only had Stability and Vigor on them, and by the time the stupid thing landed he had also given himself 2 stacks of Might, so they and the Vigor get removed but not the stability! (And of course 10" later he had 20 Might stacks back anyway.)

I’m coming to the conclusion that more regular removals of fewer boons like shatter mesmers can do is more useful than Corrupt Boon.

Thanks alot for the information! We all appreciate your efforts

Did you ever look into how the boons were applied? As in gw1 worked on a first in last out system and I suspect that gw2 does something similar as it is a modified engine. However, some boons stacking in duration is what makes it complicated to test.

It’s been a long time since I actually tested this on a mesmer but I recall the order that the guardian shouted his boons become important for which one I removed on shatter.

Well, that’s interesting.

Considering the ease of procing might this is issue particularly against guardians.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Did you ever look into how the boons were applied? As in gw1 worked on a first in last out system and I suspect that gw2 does something similar as it is a modified engine. However, some boons stacking in duration is what makes it complicated to test.

It’s been a long time since I actually tested this on a mesmer but I recall the order that the guardian shouted his boons become important for which one I removed on shatter.

According to our tests, no. We used a large variety of skills and orders of application over the course of our testing, and the only time we had weird issues was with Focus 5, which seemed to be fairly random in its removals.

That’s really odd. Either something changed from last year when I tested it or mesmer boon stripping is somehow different than boon corruption order? That seems like an unnecessary complication that the Devs would not have programmed.
Found it:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Shattered-Conditions-how-does-it-work/first#post2365705

If the guardian had only 4 boons (hold the line/stand your ground) the MW numbers were 56/82/84. I think this means the first shatter got 1 boon then did reduced dmg. The next shatter got rid of the protection so the last two shatters hit for max dmg. It was also possible to hit 84/82/84 depending on which shout the guardian used first.

Yeah, I definitly noticed something different a year ago. So odd that mesmers and necros would be different. I’ll try and test this with the mesmer to see if it’s also changed.

Its entirely possible that Mesmer is different, but if order mattered then we wouldn’t have gotten consistent removal priorities, which we did (and we did test different orders).

However, it is worth noting that Focus was pretty much totally random. Even using the same two skills to apply boons and just swapping back and forth between which was cast first, it was still random.

Out of morbid curiosity, are conditions always ordered the same way on the server? Is it by timer, by stack height, or by type?

Anchoku.8142:

Out of morbid curiosity, are conditions always ordered the same way on the server? Is it by timer, by stack height, or by type?

Not sure what you mean? Like do they appear in the same order on your UI?

Not sure if my UI is a copy of the server. The only thing that really matters is how the server proc’s condi removal. My UI may not be a direct copy of how the server perceives my conditions.

I’d have to test it more to be 100%, but it appears as though condition removal works the same as boons, each removal skill has built in priorities. Its just slightly weird, since, for example, bleed seems to always be removed by Shrouded Removal before poison, but like 1/10 times the poison is removed, even when nothing else changes about the application.

This is a huge help, thanks for you time and energy.

To be totally clear: the order of boon application + length of remaining boon duration + rarity of boon are all irrelevant?

Stand The Wall.6987:

To be totally clear: the order of boon application + length of remaining boon duration + rarity of boon are all irrelevant?

Yep.

Alright, thank you again.
Go team necro!

Thanks for the info chaps!

Anet intentionally trying kitten neco secretly without the community’s notice for 2.5 years. I’m going to bump this so more people will know.

I don’t think there is any secret widespread conspiracy against Necromancer (although maybe against MM…). This, like many other issues, is simply due to a lack of attention. If boon priorities aren’t something that cross their mind often (the last time it was an issue at all is when Thieves got the ability to steal boons), then it isn’t likely to be “fixed”.

Not directly related to boon priorities, but I’ve been wondering the same about condition removal/transfer priorities ever since someone posted a thread about necromancer’s condition removal priorities which seemed pretty much random/determined exactly by means of removal. I would be interested in this across all classes and their removals too.

It is determined by method of removal, just like boons are. But it is much harder to test than boon removal is.

Anyone willing to bet resistance boon being the hardest to remove?

Seems to me this was tested already long ago for corrupt boon and well of corruption but the axe#3 and spinal shivers is interesting!! Stability is the one I am usually trying to remove so I knew I liked these weapons for a reason! Too bad swiftness is so high up for axe though, a little redundant with the cripple applied.

I’ll bet its last for the corrupts since necros already have so much fear and with master of terror it can already get a little crazy.

It’s logical since it’s intended to help the necro kite vs melee opponents. But maybe they should have made it “remove swiftness and one additional boon”, since Swiftness is so easy to reapply anyway. Or even make it more situation with “remove Swiftness. If Swiftness is removed, remove one additional boon”

Also you guys missed one… Lich#5 a.k.a.Grim Specter. This is one of my favorites to open on melee balls so I’m pretty curious what order they come off.

If stability is high up in priority then it makes the skill better than well of corruption in my eyes.

Also a bit curious how the boon stripping is distributed, I’d wager it strips one player completely then carries on to another until its got 9.

Kilger.5490:

Also you guys missed one… Lich#5 a.k.a.Grim Specter. This is one of my favorites to open on melee balls so I’m pretty curious what order they come off.

If stability is high up in priority then it makes the skill better than well of corruption in my eyes.

Also a bit curious how the boon stripping is distributed, I’d wager it strips one player completely then carries on to another until its got 9.

Isnt is simply a full boon removel for all 5 targets?

Muchacho.2390:

Kilger.5490:

Also you guys missed one… Lich#5 a.k.a.Grim Specter. This is one of my favorites to open on melee balls so I’m pretty curious what order they come off.

If stability is high up in priority then it makes the skill better than well of corruption in my eyes.

Also a bit curious how the boon stripping is distributed, I’d wager it strips one player completely then carries on to another until its got 9.

Isnt is simply a full boon removel for all 5 targets?

It is. Also a full condition clear on all allies in the area.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Muchacho.2390:

Kilger.5490:

Also you guys missed one… Lich#5 a.k.a.Grim Specter. This is one of my favorites to open on melee balls so I’m pretty curious what order they come off.

If stability is high up in priority then it makes the skill better than well of corruption in my eyes.

Also a bit curious how the boon stripping is distributed, I’d wager it strips one player completely then carries on to another until its got 9.

Isnt is simply a full boon removel for all 5 targets?

It is. Also a full condition clear on all allies in the area.

Thats awesome! I was reading the tool tip wrong then.

Honestly, I wouldn’t mind having just Grim Specter as its own skill as an elite. Give it a 90 second cooldown and it should be good.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Honestly, I wouldn’t mind having just Grim Specter as its own skill as an elite. Give it a 90 second cooldown and it should be good.

i’d take that xd

it seems weird to me that removing aegis is so low on the order considering the nature of that boon you’d think it would be what should be gone after first

tfcgeneralkmk.9508:

it seems weird to me that removing aegis is so low on the order considering the nature of that boon you’d think it would be what should be gone after first

All of our boon removals except the two weapon ones are unblockable. In some cases it will be removed on top of the boons that would normally be removed, in many cases it simply doesn’t matter since you can just remove it with an auto attack afterwards, and in the case of Axe it just flat out blocks the skill which is the weirdest thing ever.