Guild Wars 2

Irenio -

Thanks for giving the Smokescale back it’s F2 smoke field. Much appreciated.

Now, can we talk about maybe reducing the ICD on LL’s blind by 2-4 seconds?

I would rather see 10s Weakness every 10s instead of Blind triggering randomly on anything that has “long” CD.

However, we already have Weakness on Axe with such duration/CD.

Morwath.9817:

I would rather see 10s Weakness every 10s instead of Blind triggering randomly on anything that has “long” CD.

However, we already have Weakness on Axe with such duration/CD.

I’d say we are overcapped with Weakness already.
Having blind is fine. The ICD is too long to be used efficiently.

Yeah, ICD on LL needs a reduction. 12s was overkill. Knock it down to either 6-8s for an ICD and it would be okay.

Blinding Ashes is almost the same functionality but is much easier to apply to a large number of foes and has an 8s ICD.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Blinding Ashes is almost the same functionality but is much easier to apply to a large number of foes and has an 8s ICD.

I would like to add that Blinding Ashes also allows an Elementalist defend him/herself while attacking—and dealing massive damage in the form of burning. Burning can also be reapplied more regularly and is less situational than healing, and it is feasible to blind once every 8 seconds with this trait. Lingering Light is purely defensive and does not allow for the Druid to maintain massive offensive pressure while simultaneously defending him/herself. Unless a Druid camps staff (which cannot apply serious offensive pressure with any build), he/she is reliant on healing and utility skills to proc Lingering Light. These have their own cooldowns that limit the frequency of Lingering Light procs.

Honestly, I would like to see the healing removed from the staff autoattack—it’s weak, even when specced for healing, clunky to aim, and causes some serious balance issues with CAF generation and certain traits (Natural Mender, Lingering Light). Druid needs streamlining badly, and one way to help is by making Staff a more traditional weapon for the purpose of balancing traits and CAF.

Last time I checked, Lingering Light had seperated ICD for each ally affected. This means, if you have 6 allies (4 players, yourself and your pet), you are able to put out a blind every 2 seconds. I know, this is situational, but you guys are comparing it to Blinding Ashes of elementalists. But these are different. Blinding Ashes just makes the elementalist a source of blind each 8 seconds. Lingering Light makes the druid and all his allies seperated blinding sources. And it is healing too.

I think there is no chance to reduce the CD of Lingering Light, until this trait gets a global CD for all allies.

What I haven’t been able to test is:

If an ally is affected by Lingering Light will his next AoE attack blind all targets hit, or choose 1 only?

Because frankly… If it potentially affects all enemies hit – I see no reason for you guyz to find that nerf unfair.
Yes, I know should be banished for yet another one of these opinions but that’s just how balance goes. If you start comparing you’ll definitely realize it is justified in comparison to other similar mechanics.

If it affects 1 enemy from all AoE hit, then… Well it’s frankly a joke.
Can someone provide feedback?

Kodama.6453:

Last time I checked, Lingering Light had seperated ICD for each ally affected. This means, if you have 6 allies (4 players, yourself and your pet), you are able to put out a blind every 2 seconds. I know, this is situational, but you guys are comparing it to Blinding Ashes of elementalists. But these are different. Blinding Ashes just makes the elementalist a source of blind each 8 seconds. Lingering Light makes the druid and all his allies seperated blinding sources. And it is healing too.

I think there is no chance to reduce the CD of Lingering Light, until this trait gets a global CD for all allies.

Yeah, they are different.

The Druid has to heal 5 separate allies and then within 3 seconds, those allies need to land an attack for the Blind to apply. Each ally has a 12s CD.

Ele has to press 1 button and 5 targets are on fire and blind. Each target has an 8s CD.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Ele has to press 1 button and 5 targets are on fire and blind. Each target has an 8s CD.

You can have 100 people running over your #1 spam and 100 blinds will be applied on a 12 second cooldown.

That’s what the balance is about.
You’ll usually have only 4 other people in party, but you’ll have 25 other people in WvW. That part of balance had to be taken into consideration making it only fair to be nerfed this way.
Powerful at masses, weaker at solo play. For solo play you’ll usually get Roots for more disruption anyways.

Methinks.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Ele has to press 1 button and 5 targets are on fire and blind. Each target has an 8s CD.

You can have 100 people running over your #1 spam and 100 blinds will be applied on a 12 second cooldown.

That’s what the balance is about.
You’ll usually have only 4 other people in party, but you’ll have 25 other people in WvW. That part of balance had to be taken into consideration making it only fair to be nerfed this way.
Powerful at masses, weaker at solo play. For solo play you’ll usually get Roots for more disruption anyways.

Methinks.

I thought that it would have a 5 target limit, like every other skill and trait.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Ele has to press 1 button and 5 targets are on fire and blind. Each target has an 8s CD.

You can have 100 people running over your #1 spam and 100 blinds will be applied on a 12 second cooldown.

That’s what the balance is about.
You’ll usually have only 4 other people in party, but you’ll have 25 other people in WvW. That part of balance had to be taken into consideration making it only fair to be nerfed this way.
Powerful at masses, weaker at solo play. For solo play you’ll usually get Roots for more disruption anyways.

Methinks.

Exactly this. I see the argument by Heimskarl and I can understand it. It seems unfair that the Blinding Ashes blind is aoe. But Lingering Light has a second effect (healing on proc) and like already said the problem here is the sharing. Elementalist can just make himself a blind source with set CD. Druid is able to make any ally around him a blind source, which is much more powerful in large scenarios. And that’s just what makes the balancing difficult.

Kodama.6453:

Tragic Positive.9356:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Ele has to press 1 button and 5 targets are on fire and blind. Each target has an 8s CD.

You can have 100 people running over your #1 spam and 100 blinds will be applied on a 12 second cooldown.

That’s what the balance is about.
You’ll usually have only 4 other people in party, but you’ll have 25 other people in WvW. That part of balance had to be taken into consideration making it only fair to be nerfed this way.
Powerful at masses, weaker at solo play. For solo play you’ll usually get Roots for more disruption anyways.

Methinks.

Exactly this. I see the argument by Heimskarl and I can understand it. It seems unfair that the Blinding Ashes blind is aoe. But Lingering Light has a second effect (healing on proc) and like already said the problem here is the sharing. Elementalist can just make himself a blind source with set CD. Druid is able to make any ally around him a blind source, which is much more powerful in large scenarios. And that’s just what makes the balancing difficult.

Honestly hadn’t thought about it from that angle. It makes a lot more sense now.

oshilator.4681:

Kodama.6453:

Tragic Positive.9356:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Ele has to press 1 button and 5 targets are on fire and blind. Each target has an 8s CD.

You can have 100 people running over your #1 spam and 100 blinds will be applied on a 12 second cooldown.

That’s what the balance is about.
You’ll usually have only 4 other people in party, but you’ll have 25 other people in WvW. That part of balance had to be taken into consideration making it only fair to be nerfed this way.
Powerful at masses, weaker at solo play. For solo play you’ll usually get Roots for more disruption anyways.

Methinks.

Exactly this. I see the argument by Heimskarl and I can understand it. It seems unfair that the Blinding Ashes blind is aoe. But Lingering Light has a second effect (healing on proc) and like already said the problem here is the sharing. Elementalist can just make himself a blind source with set CD. Druid is able to make any ally around him a blind source, which is much more powerful in large scenarios. And that’s just what makes the balancing difficult.

Honestly hadn’t thought about it from that angle. It makes a lot more sense now.

IMO, Blinding Ashes is much more powerful because an elementalist can sustain high damage AND defend with Blind at the same time, allowing elementalists to be versatile damage-dealers with strong defensive capabilities. Lingering Light is only good for defensive purposes. While people tend to feel that bunker/support builds are “unfun” in PvP and WvW, there is essentially no other role that Druids can serve. Druid is meant to be a dedicated support line, and taking away support options without offering anything in return simply weakens the Druid elite specialization and waters down its purpose without opening up any new roles.

And while it’s true that Lingering Light has the POTENTIAL to hit up to 25 targets with Blind (afaik it has a limit of 5 targets, who then each can hit up to 5 other people), in actuality—due to the very limited radii of the Druid’s healing skills (which I strongly feel should be increased)—it is unlikely to hit more than 5-10 targets even in WvW. The Druid can also not sustain offensive pressure while proccing Lingering Light, unlike the Elementalist with Blinding Ashes.

What I thought is …
… It has the internal cooldown per person. So you can potentially just make 5 people run through your heal, apply the blind, get other 5 people with separate ICD to do the same and keep going on with only your Glyph and Verdant Etching synergy and CAF… That’s your limitation.
The other limit is the amount of people around.

And while it’s true that Elementalist can do the blinding role by himself – Druid has the potential to maximize much more blinding potential if organized.
So it’s naturally a trade off in skill-cap. If you have the skill-cap required – you will have much more reward than the Ele Blinding Ashes counterpart.
If you don’t – you’ll have less reward. That’s just how it goes and I’m perfectly fine with it.

I’m sorry for all the fellow players who want it buffed. But I am fine with it.

Tragic Positive.9356:

What I thought is …
… It has the internal cooldown per person. So you can potentially just make 5 people run through your heal, apply the blind, get other 5 people with separate ICD to do the same and keep going on with only your Glyph and Verdant Etching synergy and CAF… That’s your limitation.
The other limit is the amount of people around.

And while it’s true that Elementalist can do the blinding role by himself – Druid has the potential to maximize much more blinding potential if organized.
So it’s naturally a trade off in skill-cap. If you have the skill-cap required – you will have much more reward than the Ele Blinding Ashes counterpart.
If you don’t – you’ll have less reward. That’s just how it goes and I’m perfectly fine with it.

I’m sorry for all the fellow players who want it buffed. But I am fine with it.

My only problem with this theory is the very, very limited radius and long cast time of most Druid heals. It requires stacking for maximizing the effectiveness of LL, which is a) the meta I assumed ArenaNet was trying to work against and b) a surefire way to get your five targets nuked by an AoE as they stand in once place waiting for heals—especially if YOU are one of the five targets and you put the big CAF target over your head. Those affected by LL also need to very quickly (and successfully) hit their targets in order to proc the Blind.

This is one of those things that works out well in theory, but poorly in practice I think. Additionally, smoke fields+whirl/projectile finishers are far more effective, quicker to use, are spammable, and have no ICD.

@Scrimshaw

Yep, I’m aware it’s just a theory.
But I can see the effective use of it in competitive content. Like the mini-game you’d like to play with your teammates.
Naturally – if CAF #1 and #2 won’t get addressed – the use is waaaay too limited to be put into any practice. But if they do address that – this trait has the potential. Even being limited.

Tragic Positive.9356:

@Scrimshaw

Yep, I’m aware it’s just a theory.
But I can see the effective use of it in competitive content. Like the mini-game you’d like to play with your teammates.
Naturally – if CAF #1 and #2 won’t get addressed – the use is waaaay too limited to be put into any practice. But if they do address that – this trait has the potential. Even being limited.

I think it would be fun to give it a shot, at least, especially in GvG. But yeah, with healing AoEs as they are, it’s gonna be pretty darn niche and very risky.

We all agree in this actual state 12s is a totally useless trait.

With 3s was super op but i think it needs some change to make it viable.

Now 0 rangers will use it.