Guild Wars 2

Tested with level 80 human guardian in heart of the mists and gendarran fields.

When renewed focus is being cast, swapping weapons will cancel the ability prematurely. This results in renewed focus going on full cooldown while any expended virtues are not recharged. Reproduce as follows:

1. Use the activated abilities of one or more of “virtue of justice”, “virtue of resolve”, and “virtue of courage” (this is not a necessary condition for the bug, but is necessary to observe the results).
2. While any activated virtues are still on cooldown (i.e. just after using them), activate the elite skill “renewed focus”.
3. At any point during the channeling of “renewed focus” (i.e. while the yellow cast bar is still filling), swap weapon. This can be done at any point during the channeling of “renewed focus”, including just after casting it or when it is almost finished channeling.
4. “Renewed focus” should now be on a 90 second cooldown, whereas any of the virtues that are normally recharged by completing the channeling of “renewed focus” are still on their respective cooldowns.

It would perhaps be better to allow weapon swapping to occur during the channeling and not have it cancel renewed focus, similar to how an elementalist can swap attunements during mist form without having the mist form effect removed.

I first observed this watching someone else’s video, but tested it in game as well. The video evidence can be seen at the 12:30 mark in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_R13VMIQ7o

The guardian (that is, the player featured in the footage) uses renewed focus and then swaps weapons just before the channeling is complete, which causes it to be canceled and none of the guardian’s virtues are recharged. This was likely done by accident as the player thought that renewed focus had just completed channeling, but instead the player lost the virtue recharges because they weapon swapped a split second too soon.

Every skill in this game is canceled by weapon swap. This can be used to your advantage by skilled play, so I would suggest that it should not be changed (and isn’t a bug anyway).

What Draconx said. Even dodges are cancelled by weapon swaps.

Elementalist attunements aren’t considered true weapon swaps, so they don’t cancel anything. Its why the “on swap” sigils didn’t work with elementalist attunements at first and they had to specifically patch in that ability.

i noticed this too. i cast RF and then dodge or get intterupted or weaponswap…. it goes on full cooldown and i dont get recharged. its a bug.

It’s not a bug for Renewed Focus to go on full cooldown in a case like that. If it didn’t, then you could activate it to get invulnerability, dodge or weapon swap before the animation finishes, and then be able to use it again in 3.5 seconds for more invulnerability, and so on.

Because of the skill’s nature, how it gives invulnerability during its casting, it needs to go on full cooldown if it’s interrupted or cancelled.

Xiahou Mao.9701:

It’s not a bug for Renewed Focus to go on full cooldown in a case like that. If it didn’t, then you could activate it to get invulnerability, dodge or weapon swap before the animation finishes, and then be able to use it again in 3.5 seconds for more invulnerability, and so on.

Because of the skill’s nature, how it gives invulnerability during its casting, it needs to go on full cooldown if it’s interrupted or cancelled.

thats fine and i agree….but its still a bug bc it should renew f1 f2 f3 regardless if you finish. if it goes on full cooldown it should have worked. simple.

Travlane.5948:

Xiahou Mao.9701:

It’s not a bug for Renewed Focus to go on full cooldown in a case like that. If it didn’t, then you could activate it to get invulnerability, dodge or weapon swap before the animation finishes, and then be able to use it again in 3.5 seconds for more invulnerability, and so on.

Because of the skill’s nature, how it gives invulnerability during its casting, it needs to go on full cooldown if it’s interrupted or cancelled.

thats fine and i agree….but its still a bug bc it should renew f1 f2 f3 regardless if you finish. if it goes on full cooldown it should have worked. simple.

The virtue recharge ONLY happens if the skill is fully channeled. That means 2 seconds after you use it. Not 1 second when you swap weapons, not even 1.99 second, 2 seconds. If it gets interrupted, it goes on CD and you dont get the recharge.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Travlane.5948:

Xiahou Mao.9701:

It’s not a bug for Renewed Focus to go on full cooldown in a case like that. If it didn’t, then you could activate it to get invulnerability, dodge or weapon swap before the animation finishes, and then be able to use it again in 3.5 seconds for more invulnerability, and so on.

Because of the skill’s nature, how it gives invulnerability during its casting, it needs to go on full cooldown if it’s interrupted or cancelled.

thats fine and i agree….but its still a bug bc it should renew f1 f2 f3 regardless if you finish. if it goes on full cooldown it should have worked. simple.

The virtue recharge ONLY happens if the skill is fully channeled. That means 2 seconds after you use it. Not 1 second when you swap weapons, not even 1.99 second, 2 seconds. If it gets interrupted, it goes on CD and you dont get the recharge.

That’s my point though, it would make more sense if it were simply not interruptable, especially because you cannot normally be interrupted during the cast time of renewed focus due to being invulnerable. Either that or simply disable weapon swaps during the renewed focus channel period.

As seen in the video, the player swaps weapons a split second too early, and the punishment for doing so is quite heavy (elite on full cooldown, virtues not recharged). Making it so that the ability was simply not interrupted would be more sensible.

However, perhaps this would be more appropriate for the professions balance forum since it’s not a “bug” in the sense that something isn’t working properly, but is instead working in a particular way that is possibly worth changing. I’ll repost it there.

Channel skills are interrupted if you move, swap weapons, get pulled/knocked back, or a control effect, and for some, if you activate another skill too soon.
The problem with renewed focus is that you’re invulnerable DURING the channeling. That’s why this skill goes on full cooldown regardless. Too easily abused otherwise. Imagine guardians soloing even more bosses because they can channel renewed focus when a boss starts a big attack animation, and weapon swap to cancel the channel, and get renewed focus again in 3-4 seconds or whatever it is?
Easiest solution is to make the guardian invulnerable for 2 seconds AFTER it’s channeled, but that kinda defeats the point of the skill.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Easiest solution is to make the guardian invulnerable for 2 seconds AFTER it’s channeled, but that kinda defeats the point of the skill.

The easiest solution is to learn to play. If you don’t want to cancel renewed focus before it’s done channelling, just don’t do that.