Guild Wars 2

Thank you so much Karl for the Tempest! This is by far, my favourite elite spec and has sparked my interest in the game again! I spent almost the entire beta weekend playing it as it was so much fun. All the changes you made from BW2 (Adding a stability trait, making Overload Fire pulse as a fire field upon completion, making Overload Earth grant 3 stacks of stab and pulse its field upon completion…etc) have gone a long way into making the Tempest a viable specialization…so thank you again.

Just a few very minor points I wanted to bring up:

1) Rebound: Currently feels a bit underturned. I definitely love the idea of it but I feel that it could use a little help with numbers and functionality. For starters, I feel like the heal should be much bigger if you do manage to time it properly and cast it off before someone dies. It should definitely be healing for a lot more than a Water Attune/Overload Water heal. Secondly, the secondary effect where it grants allies an aura when it expires naturally feels too weak to be considered an elite. For a 75 second cooldown elite, granting one aura for 5 seconds is kind of pitiful. Below is a suggestion of how you can tweak Rebound to make it more fitting for an elite:

Suggestion: Shout and infuse your allies with arcane energy. Allies who would take lethal damage while this is active ignore the deathblow, are healed a large amount, and gain an aura based on your current attunement. If the effect expires naturally, grant all elemental auras for 5 seconds (Fire Shield, Frost Aura, Magnetic Aura, Shocking Aura).

Healing: 6396 (+200% of your Healing Power)
Fire Shield (5s): Enveloped in a fiery shield that burns foes, grants might each time you are struck (1-second cooldown per attacker).
Frost Aura (5s): Chill foes that strike you (only once per second for each attacker); incoming damage is reduced by 10%.
Shocking Aura (5s): Stun nearby attacking foes with an electric shock (only once per 2 seconds for each attacker).
Magnetic Aura (5s): Reflect projectiles with magnetic energy.
Rebound (5s): Ignore the next lethal blow and receive healing
Number of Allied Targets: 5
Radius: 600

2) Earthen Proxy/Latent Stamina: These definitely need to be replaced though I do recall that you mentioned you were looking into changing these. Mind sharing with us your current iterations on these two traits?

3) Lucid Singularity: Seemed to be bugged as I was still able to get chilled while overloading. Also, I was able to heal allies after successful overloads? I hope this functionality remains however as the trait itself would seem extremely underwhelming as a grandmaster if the heal at the end of each elemental overload was removed.

Feedback
Much of the concerns from the previous Beta Weekends still persist…the lack of direction with traits is absolutely disgusting and embarrassing to say the least. We’ve had three years to build the “groundwork” for moving forward and building a system to “make changes like these a lot easier”, yet we can’t even creatively come up with a somewhat cohesive set of Traits for the Elementalist. The skill and stab changes seem like a baby step in the right direction…but there’s still a lack of consistency, polish and diversity.

1) Latent Stamina: Why does this trait still exisit in its current form? This trait has absolutely nothing to do with the Tempest and feels more suited for Water Magic.

2) Earthen Proxy: You’re absolutely right in assuming that this trait is difficult to track in a party. Although your initial blurb on keeping this trait as a selfish trait is baffling. The inclusion of a selfish trait in a specialization that is all about shouting, granting auras, and overloading attunements to control, grant boons, and support is confusing and out of place.

3) Harmonious Conduit: Is this only one stack of stability?

4) Imbued Melodies: Basically a Guardian’s Honorable Staff…only worse and a Grandmaster. Why were the stun breaking properties of the Warhorn removed? Also to delve deeper into the current iteration, boon duration would have somewhat made sense with the old Heat Sync. Since that is getting changed to only share Might stacks however (one of the few good changes), 20% boon duration makes no sense…especially as a Grandmaster. Even though I was probably never going to try the Warhorn, this change just further solidified my decision to never go Warhorn…ever.

Trait Improvements
This is an amended copied and pasted version from my previous post in the BWE2 Feedback Thread…incorporating some of the better changes from above into the different traits. While this is not a definitive demand for traits, we REALLY need to build clear specialization paths for the Tempest because as it stands, the traits are a jumbled mess. Below are three routes you could possibly take (from BWE2 traits with some incorporated BWE3 changes– Added healing in Elemental Bastion, 10% damage bonus from Harmonious Conduit into Lucid Singularity, and Stability Charges from Harmonious Conduit into Earthen Proxy).

1. The Stun Breaker
-focuses on using shouts and warhorn abilities to remove stuns from itself and allies

a) Gale Song:
Current: Trigger “Eye of the Storm!” when a foe attempts to control you by stun, daze, knockback, pull, knockdown, sink, float, fear, taunt, or launch (CD: 45 seconds).
Changes: No change needed, good as is!

b) Earthen Proxy
Current: Damage is further reduced when you are under the effects of protection by 20%.
Changes: Breaking a stun for an ally grants that ally 2 stacks of stability for 3 seconds (You count as an ally).
Reasoning: Earthen proxy was too boring of a trait and provided incredibly little benefit (a mere 7% extra damage reduction) to even be noticeable in combat…ever. With this change, the ele can grant some stability to allies (a sore spot for this class). However, stability application is much harder than some of the other supports as the tempest will have to wait AFTER a stun has landed in order to reap the benefits from this trait. So it’ll play a lot differently in the sense that the Tempest needs to be reactive in breaking stuns for allies instead of being proactive with accumulating stab stacks before an initiation.

c) Imbued Melodies
Current: Upon casting, warhorn abilities break stun for allies in a 600 radius around you (ICD: 10 sec).
Changes: No change needed, good as is (and will have a lot more synergy with the above Earthen Proxy)

2. The Auramancer
-focuses on the provision and bolstering of auras

a) Unstable Conduit
Current: Overloading an attunement grants an aura based on the element you’re attuned to when the ability is completed.
Change: No change needed, good as is!

b) Tempestuous Aria
Current: Allies affected by your shouts gain might. Enemies are affected by weakness.
Change: Add a “Reduces the cooldown of shouts by 20%” clause in there.
Reasoning: Pretty self explanatory; there needs to be a CD reduction trait associated with the new utility.

c) Elemental Bastion
Current: Auras you apply heal allies. Apply a frost aura to yourself and nearby allies when struck while below the health threshold.
Change: Increase the base healing and scaling healing. Add “Auras last 20% longer” clause.
Reasoning: To make it more impactful for non healing power builds and to incentivize healing power users to grab this trait.

The Overloader
-focuses on supporting allies through the constant overloading of attunements while increasing the risk/reward of said overloads

a) Latent Stamina
Current: Apply vigor in a radius when attuning to water. Granting vigor to allies also restores a portion of endurance.
Change: Nearby allies gain 25 endurance when you successfully overload an attunement (ie, if you complete the channel of the overload).
Reasoning: The old iteration felt incredibly out of place and weak. This way, we still maintain the original intent (if you want to call it that) of the original trait while blending it into the tempest’s unique mechanic.

b) Harmonious Conduit
Current: Recharge from overloading an attunement is reduced.
Change: Overloads recharge faster every time you take damage while overloading (Recharge reduction per instance of damage taken: 3%); 16 second cooldown on Overloads now made baseline.
Reasoning: An elementalist should be rewarded if his positioning and timing is correct when overloading his attunements. This vastly increases the risk vs reward for tempest and replaces an otherwise bland trait with a unique cooldown reducing mechanic to motivate elementalists to overload their attunements. Note that at 3%, the overload for a particular attunement would go down by ~0.5 second per source of damage taken. This really forces Tempests to make an important decision…should I go in harms way to reduce the cooldown of my overload by a vast amount but put myself at risk of being interrupted/taking heavy damage or stay safer but incur a higher cooldown?

c) Lucid Singularity
Current: Remove and gain massive resistance to movement-impeding conditions while overloading your attunements.
Change: You and nearby allies gain a boon every second based on the current attunement that you are overloading with a longer lasting boon at the end of a successful overload. Additionally, gain a 10% damage bonus for 5 seconds after successfully overloading an attunement.
Fire: 1 second of Fury per second; 5 seconds of Fury, and 5 stacks of Might for 5 seconds after a successful Overload Fire
Water: 1 second of Vigor per second; 3 seconds of Vigor after a successful Overload Water (retaining the old iteration of Latent Stamina)
Air: 1 second of Super Speed per second; 2 seconds of Super Speed after a successful Overload Air
Earth: 1 second of Resistance per second; 2 seconds of Resistance after a successful Overload Earth (retaining the old iteration of Lucid Singularity)
Reasoning: In a specialization that’s supposed to be all about supporting allies, this grandmaster felt incredibly lackluster and clunky. Changing it to add boons for allies gives it more synergy with Latent Stamina and Harmonious Conduit.

Definitely love the changes…support revenant is looking a lot nicer with the Ventari and Glint/Shield changes. One thing however:

Roy Cronacher.1576:

• Purifying Essence: This skill is now instant cast. Decreased the energy cost from 35 to 30 and added a 5 second recharge.

Was the 5 second recharge needed on this skill? We’re already prohibited by a fairly hefty energy cost of 30 which assuming we don’t have any upkeep, needs 6 seconds with 5 pips of energy regen to breakeven. Also, in a game that favours movement in combat, you’ll need at least 40 energy (10 for moving the tablet, 30 for casting this) in most cases to cleanse 3 conditions.

Trait improvements
While the playstyle and mechanics added are fine for the Tempest, I feel like the traits could use a lot of cleaning up. There seems to be only one somewhat plausible theme in the line and that’s the Aura line (when coupled with Powerful Aura from Water). Akin to what Robert Gee did for his elite specializations (Reaper has a monster line, chill line, and a defensive line; Berserker has a physical brute, condi and self reliant line…etc), we should try to maintain the same level of diversity in the Tempest Traits (currently lacking). Therefore, let’s go with the three themes somewhat visible in the current iteration: A Stun Breaker, an Auramancer, and an Overloader. The below should definitely not be a definitive “demand” but more of a “sample” of how you can approach the redesigning of the Tempest Traits.

1. The Stun Breaker
-focuses on using shouts and warhorn abilities to remove stuns from itself and allies

a) Gale Song:
Current: Trigger “Eye of the Storm!” when a foe attempts to control you by stun, daze, knockback, pull, knockdown, sink, float, fear, taunt, or launch (CD: 45 seconds).
Changes: No change needed, good as is!

b) Earthen Proxy
Current: Damage is further reduced when you are under the effects of protection by 20%.
Changes: Breaking a stun for an ally grants that ally (yourself included) 2 stacks of stability for 3 seconds.
Reasoning: Earthen proxy was too boring of a trait and provided incredibly little benefit (a mere 7% extra damage reduction) to even be noticeable in combat…ever. With this change, the ele can grant some stability to allies (a sore spot for this class). However, stability application is much harder than some of the other supports as the tempest will have to wait AFTER a stun has landed in order to reap the benefits from this trait. So it’ll play a lot differently in the sense that the Tempest needs to be reactive in breaking stuns for allies instead of being proactive with accumulating stab stacks before an initiation.

c) Imbued Melodies
Current: Upon casting, warhorn abilities break stun for allies in a 600 radius around you (ICD: 10 sec). Reduces recharge on warhorn skills (20%).
Changes: No change needed, good as is (and will have a lot more synergy with the above Earthen Proxy)

2. The Auramancer
-focuses on the provision and bolstering of auras

a) Unstable Conduit
Current: Overloading an attunement grants an aura based on the element you’re attuned to when the ability is completed.
Change: No change needed, good as is!

b) Tempestuous Aria
Current: Allies affected by your shouts gain might. Enemies are affected by weakness.
Change: Add a “Reduces the cooldown of shouts by 20%” clause in there.
Reasoning: Pretty self explanatory; there needs to be a CD reduction trait associated with the new utility.

c) Elemental Bastion
Current: Auras you apply heal allies. Apply a frost aura to yourself and nearby allies when struck while below the health threshold.
Change: Increase the base healing and scaling healing. Add “Auras last 20% longer” clause.
Reasoning: To make it more impactful for non healing power builds and to incentivize healing power users to grab this trait.

The Overloader
-focuses on supporting allies through the constant overloading of attunements while increasing the risk/reward of said overloads

a) Latent Stamina
Current: Apply vigor in a radius when attuning to water. Granting vigor to allies also restores a portion of endurance.
Change: Nearby allies gain 25 endurance when you successfully overload an attunement (ie, if you complete the channel of the overload).
Reasoning: The old iteration felt incredibly out of place and weak. This way, we still maintain the original intent (if you want to call it that) of the original trait while blending it into the tempest’s unique mechanic.

b) Harmonious Conduit
Current: Recharge from overloading an attunement is reduced.
Change: Overloads recharge faster every time you take damage while overloading (Recharge reduction per instance of damage taken: 5%).
Reasoning: An elementalist should be rewarded if his positioning and timing is correct when overloading his attunements. This vastly increases the risk vs reward for tempest and replaces an otherwise bland trait with a unique cooldown reducing mechanic to motivate elementalists to overload their attunements. Note that at 5%, the overload for a particular attunement would go down by 1 second per source of damage taken. This really forces Tempests to make an important decision…should I go in harms way to reduce the cooldown of my overload by a vast amount but put myself at risk of being interrupted/taking heavy damage or stay safer but incur a higher cooldown?

c) Lucid Singularity
Current: Remove and gain massive resistance to movement-impeding conditions while overloading your attunements.
Change: You and nearby allies gain a boon every second based on the current attunement that you are overloading with a longer lasting boon at the end of a successful overload.
Fire: 1 second of Fury per second; 5 seconds of Fury, and 5 stacks of Might for 5 seconds after a successful Overload Fire
Water: 1 second of Vigor per second; 5 seconds of Vigor after a successful Overload Water (retaining the old iteration of Latent Stamina)
Air: 1 second of Super Speed per second; 3 seconds of Super Speed after a successful Overload Air
Earth: 1 second of Resistance per second; 3 seconds of Resistance after a successful Overload Earth (retaining the old iteration of Lucid Singularity)
Reasoning: In a specialization that’s supposed to be all about supporting allies, this grandmaster felt incredibly lackluster and clunky. Changing it to add boons for allies gives it more synergy with Latent Stamina and Harmonious Conduit.

Feedback from the perspective of a dedicated support WvW roaming/havoc player:

Build used: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWn0XCFYiVOAGOA8RgFVAzNrOWPrEBgFQBo4D0/yAA
Armor: Cleric’s
Weapon: Cleric’s
Runes: Superior Runes of the Monk

-Loved the feel and different playstyle added to the Elementalist through the Tempest specialization (mainly the overload mechanic and actually changing up the usual Attunement dancing that Eles know and love)

Skills Tried

Wash the Pain Away: Healing felt impactful and powerful which was very appreciated. Loved this skill.
Suggestion: Cleanup the tooltip to indicate the correct healing values to allies. Add “Grant 5 seconds of Light Aura to allies in a 600 radius” to make it consistent with the other utility shouts.

Eye of the Storm: Absolutely loved this skill! The sound effect, the animation, the shout…perfect. It’s confusing that this is the only shout that doesn’t have an Aura associated with it but I understand the balancing reasoning behind this (mainly that going Fresh Air + Powerful Aura + Unstable Conduit means you would probably already have infinite Shocking Aura on allies anyways).

Overload Fire: Amazing for getting tags, granting might to allies (something I couldn’t do as easily with my old Arcane/Water/Earth build), and contributing some close-range damage

Overload Water: Amazing at healing and cleaning condi burst! Loved this skill.

Overload Air: Decent damage and vulnerability application, but for the purposes of my playstyle, I found myself hardly using this skill. However, that’s definitely to be expected since I realize it’s potential with Fresh Air + Powerful Aura + Unstable Conduit builds and that seems like an amazing secondary utility support path

Overload Earth: amazing for initiation and disengage as well granting more protection to allies. My only complaint is that the blast at the end of the channel is hard to land on fields and almost always requires another ally to setup a field to blast (even then, that’s difficult to coordinate as Overload Earth takes 5 seconds to channel…most fields expire by the time it ends).
Suggestion: Add an additional blast at the start of the channel

Other Skills

Rebound: the change initially posted by Karl looks really good for Rebound, much better than the current iteration

Warhorn: Unfortunately didn’t try this and I don’t think I will be as I prefer the Staff playstyle.

(Continued on the below post)

Getting the exact same error message as the one depicted in the OP. PLS HALP

Ujio.2045:

I am getting infinite loading screens, this happened 9 days ago on sunday when people seemed to be crashing also, but this issue went away for me the following day. I can’t post the crash text because the game never leaves the loading screen, I tried every possible fix I could find on google.

Yup, I’m also in the same boat as you. Had the infinite loading screen happen to me 9 days ago and it’s flaring up again….

First thing’s first, the revenant looks like an incredibly fun and unique profession and I cannot wait to try it in the next Beta Weekend Event (sadly I missed out on the first prepurchase wave). Congratulations Roy on making a profession that brings new and exciting mechanics to GW2! That being said, I did notice a few “uninspired” Grandmaster traits that don’t really synergize with what the prior Adept and Master Traits are attempting to accomplish.

In an attempt to solidify the three roles present in the Herald Specialization (Akin to much of the other Elite Specializations; Reaper = Monster/Chiller/Front-liner, Berserker = Physical/Condi/Self Sustain and Stun…etc), I propose the following changes (referencing the livestream notes found at http://dulfy.net/2015/08/14/gw2-revenant-herald-elite-specialization-livestream-notes/):

1. The Stun Breaker
-an active disengage role, focusing on breaking stuns, granting stability, and gaining superspeed (synergizing greatly with the Shiro Legend Stance Skill – Riposting Shadows)

a) Swift Gale
Current: Gain 3 seconds of superspeed when you successfully break a stun.
Change: No change needed, good as is!

b) Harmonize Continuity
Current: When you succesfully break a stun, you also break it for nearby allies (Radius: 600).
Change: No change needed, good as is!

c) Enhanced Bulwark
Current: When stability is applied to you, gain an extra stack. (1 second internal cooldown, 1 stack for 5 seconds)
Change: While you are degenerating energy, grant one stack of stability in an area around you every 3 seconds. Additionally, when stability is applied to you, gain an extra stack. (Radius on Stab Aura = 600, Stab Aura = 1 stack of stability for 3 seconds, Stability Aura Interval=3 seconds, Self Stability Proc = 3 second internal cooldown)
Reasoning: The Herald is all about upkeeping energy and facets to supplement allies with boons. The Stun Break line should thus grant an interesting risk/reward opportunity for players to upkeep higher energy but to grant allies and itself stability. Additionally, it felt like you were forced to bring the Jalis Legend in order to get any source of stability from yourself so I feel like this is an interesting way of providing it to the Glint Legend as well. This trait should thus make energy management and toggling on and off upkeep skills a bit more interesting (do I activate more facets to grant stab to myself and allies on that warrior using Earthshaker…etc).

2. The Bard
-a passive utility role, focusing on providing additional support through the constant upstream of facets and granting additional boons

a) Hardened Persistence
Current: Gain 40 toughness for each point of upkeep you are currently using.
Change: No change needed, good as is!

b) Shared Empowerment
Current: Grant one stack of might to nearby allies whenever you apply a boon to allies. (Duration: 5 seconds, Internal Cooldown: 1 second)
Change: Although this is a great trait, may need to increase the duration to 10 seconds as it takes some time for a Glint user to build up a large amount of might stacks

c) Elder’s Force
Current: Increases your damage by 2% per boon on you.
Change: Increases your damage by 2% per boon on you. Activating One with Nature grants you 5 energy for each point of upkeep you are currently using and extends the duration of existing boons on nearby allies by 4 seconds (Radius: 600).
Reasoning: A boon to damage trait in a Grandmaster spot by itself is very lackluster when you look at the location of identical traits for other classes. With the added clause of activating One with Nature, a “Bard” type Herald Revenant gains an additional tool to maintain a constant stream of boons even when things get rough and you need to pulse multiple facets. The Bard is therefore presented with another interesting choice…do I continue to upkeep Naturalistic Reasonance (-2 energy regen, +50% Boon Duration) with my facets to grant longer lasting boons but risk having them all deactivate and waiting for my energy to replenish OR do I activate One with Nature to grant a burst of boons and to continue pulsing my facets (albit with shorter durations since Naturalistic Reasonance would be disabled)?

3. The Prophet
-an active defensive role, focusing on improving the Herald’s ability to heal and protect allies

a) Radiant Revival
Current: Place infuse light on an ally while you revive them. (Duration: 2 seconds, Recharge: 45 seconds).
Change: Grant infuse light on yourself and on an ally while you revive them.(Duration 2 seconds, Recharge: 30 seconds).
Reasoning: Great concept, just needed a little help to incentive the Revenant to put himself in danger to resurrect an ally. In addition, the cooldown was lowered to match the cooldown of the actual Infuse Light active skill.

b) Bolster Fortifications
Current: Grant protection to nearby allies when using a healing skill (Duration: 2 seconds, Radius: 600).
Change: No change needed, good as is, assuming it works with Ventari’s Will!

c) Soothing Bastion
Current: Activate Crystal Hibernation when you are struck below the health threshold. Using a shield skill increases boon duration by 2 seconds. (Crystal Hibernation Duration: 3 seconds, Crystal Hibernation Cooldown: 30 seconds)
Change: For each point of energy upkeep you are currently using, regenerate health for yourself and nearby allies every 3 seconds. Additionally, when you are struck below the health threshold, your shield skills instantly recharge. (Shield skill recharge reduction cooldown: 60 seconds, Healing every 3 seconds: 70 + (0.05*Healing Power) per point of energy upkeep, Healing Aura Radius: 600)
Reasoning: Removed the boon duration clause as we added that to the Bard’s Elder Force GrandMaster. Also, while it’s always great to have survivability options, I don’t feel that a self-root as a grandmaster is the best way to approach this. I feel like a more elegant solution would be to instantly recharge shield skills when you reach the health threshold. This gives the Revenant time to better position himself and to use the skill when he wants to use it, rather than delaying the inevitable and self-rooting yourself (which could lead to even worse solutions than if you were to just kite). Additionally, wanted to really drive home the whole maintaining energy upkeep concept that we can see present in the other two themes. This again, gives the Herald interesting energy management decisions to make while still being consistent with the theme of supporting and healing allies.

All in all, I really love the idea of having a Bard-like specialization and would love to see it come to fruition in the universe of Guild Wars 2! The Grandmasters just needed a little help so it would be awesome if we could at least create Grandmasters that match the existing themes already present.

EDIT: Grammer. English are hard.

Yeah I’ve been getting this too. A lot of infinite load screens, slow logins, and errors when the connection timed out.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

KinkyPotato.4219:

• Attribute points on equipment have been increased by ~30%*

Have they actually stated by how much boon duration will change? What if most stats change by 28% and boon duration increases by more? Until we know the specifics, I think it’s premature to ask for specific new prefixes or sigils or runes.

I guess now’s the time we should be asking about this since Giver’s armor is still 1% ingame…

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Have they actually stated by how much boon duration will change? What if most stats change by 28% and boon duration increases by more? Until we know the specifics, I think it’s premature to ask for specific new prefixes or sigils or runes.

I don’t think it’s premature at all, considering the fact that Giver’s armor has been in this state for quite some time (I believe it was introduced two Winterdays ago). It may have easily been overlooked with the big list of changes coming our way (which don’t get me wrong, I am very appreciative of).

Also, nowhere in the post did I mention about adding new sigils or runes or even prefixes. This prefix already exists, I was merely just extending it by adding it to the remaining missing pieces (weapons). I’ve edited my initial post because I completely forgot about the Snowflake Trinkets (which are the Giver equivalent of trinkets).

I believe you may have been confused because I used a different name for it (as stated above, this was only done because “Giver’s” weapons already exist but have different stats on them).

As some of you may know, the patch on June 23rd is going to see the removal of attribute points in specific trait lines (now called Specializations) and the increase of attributes on existing gear. For reference, here’s the exact blurb from the patch notes uploaded on http://www.dragonseason.com/activity/390/:

Attribute points on equipment have been increased by ~30%

While I generally agree with this change, I’ve noticed a drastic decrease to Boon Duration in almost all classes with only minor compensation. For example: Let’s take a look at the Guardian’s Honorable Staff Trait which grants 20% Boon Duration while wielding a staff and recharges staff abilities by 20%. If one were to assume that pre-patch, a support guardian had 6 in Virtues and 6 in Honor, he would have gained 30% baseline Boon Duration. Therefore, with this new specialization trait, a support Guardian has lost 10% Boon Duration while wielding a Staff and 30% Boon Duration when switching to their second weapon set. Therefore, while I feel like this is a huge nerf to Support, we can fix this problem by actually making Giver’s Armor (Primary: Toughness, Secondaries: Boon Duration and Healing Power) a worthwhile set to pickup.

Currently, Giver’s Armor gives a whopping 1% Boon Duration PER Armor Piece. Taking the patch note from above, we’re left with a whopping 1.3% Boon Duration per piece which is pitiful. I feel like this is the perfect opportunity for Arenanet to buff this armor set by drastically increasing the boon duration and introducing the remaining weapons of this attribute set. Below is a sample (obviously not final and subject to testing/changing) of the new Boon Duration numbers, taking into account also the above +30% base buff:

Existing Exotic Giver’s Armor Pieces:
Helmet: +3% Boon Duration
Shoulders: +2% Boon Duration
Chest: +5% Boon Duration
Gloves: +2% Boon Duration
Pants: +4% Boon Duration
Shoes: +2% Boon Duration

Introducing new Exotic “Prophet’s” Weapons: (since existing Giver Weapons give Condition Duration, Vitality and Precision)
1 Handed: +4% Boon Duration
Offhand: +3% Boon Duration
Two Handed: +7% Boon Duration

Existing Exotic Snowflake Trinkets:
Amulet: +5% Boon Duration
Rings: +4% Boon Duration * 2
Earrings: +3% Boon Duration * 2
Backpack: +2% Boon Duration

Assuming someone equips a full set of Giver’s/Prophet’s/Snowflake, they will have a total of 46% Boon Duration. I feel like this would go a long way in giving Support Players even more options to gear (Do I get Nomad’s to have more survivability? Do I get Clerics/Apothecary’s to do more damage and more healing? Do I get Giver’s to have more boon utility?) and is an incredibly fair trade off as you gain no offensive attributes whatsoever. Eventually, Arenanet can also add Ascended options for acquiring this set through the usual means (Rings – Pristine Fractal Relics/WvW, Accessories – Guild missions/Laurels…etc). Since Giver’s/Prophet’s does not have any offensive stats on it, there shouldn’t be an issue of heavily stacked Boon Duration damage dealers (as was the case a while back where you were allowed to get +45% Boon Duration by equipping 2 Traveler Runes, 2 Monk Runes, and 2 Water Runes).

NyuuNeeChan.2891:

I think that it’s trait and equipment stat choice that decides my build not elite. If i had to build around elite, the only build for thief would be venom one, as other elites have no synergies at all. Elite skill is more of the final touch to build. The thing you change depeding on situation you facing. Rather than adding new elites, i would take look at our existing ones. For example, making Time Warp glamour skill ( i have no idea why it isn’t, probbably problem with balancing traits for 10 second long skill), making mortar into a kit, dagger storm into trick, renewed focus into meditation etc.

Yes, I definitely agree with readjusting the current elites IN ADDITION to adding newer elites (3 elites will get stagnant and boring over time). Reducing the CDS of current elites, making them utility types, and reducing their durations will go a long way in opening up build diversity (as was mentioned in an earlier response from me). I’ll probably make another thread soon to highlight a few changes that can be done to current elites as well. For now, let’s try and stick with the topic of FUTURE elites.

oZii.2864:

They seem very strong so not finished products but the base concept is solid. They said that the heals are build defining choices and to some extent I agree but I feel the elites are a much build definer or they could be.

They are skills that can be powerful but if you have it or not really can dictate a fights outcome.

As a elementalist main:

Arcane Quickening suggestion is pretty solid. I would definitely give it a spin. Instant cast on fire grabs, and churning would be pretty nice. That is where they would get the most uses for a D/D Ele and the elite aligns with the long cooldown of those skills.

Stone Sheath looks a bit to strong I think a 90s would be better maybe even 120 Ele’s are use to long cooldown elites and one this strong I think 90-120 range for recharge would be better I would probably go 120 seconds for this one.

Elemental essence really strong for only 60 seconds. This looks more like a 180 second elite to me. I would take these over the current elites more often then not. The other elites have their roles though so they wouldn’t be totally over shadowed.

Thanks for the feedback! I adjusted the CD on Stone Sheath to 90 seconds and Elemental Essence had its radius cut down to 360 to warrant the 60 second CD. I feel like the 60 second cd is necessary as this basically like the Elementalist’s Version of “Plague” where they need to be up close and personal to deliver their effects. Kiting, CCing the ele, and simply out running the ele are all viable counters for the 5 second duration of this channel (in terms of fire and earth).

DanSH.6143:

bro you’re insane, most of these elites are extremely Overpowered. Low recharge elites shouldn’t be that strong.

The idea is that in addition to role-defining elites, current elites in the game should also get a similar rework so that the maximum cd on these abilities is 90 seconds. Most of the Transformation elites can see modest cooldown decreases while also having their durations reduced to promote active casting rather than “one time final form” abilities. Changes like the following would help to bring more of the current elites in line:

Guardian:
Tome of Courage: Reduced cooldown to 90 seconds, reduced duration to 12 seconds.
Tome of Wrath- Reduced cooldown to 90 seconds, reduced duration to 12 seconds.

Elementalist:
Glyph of Elementals- Reduced cooldown to 60 seconds, reduced summon duration to 30 seconds.

NyuuNeeChan.2891:

Barbed trap seems too powerful for me, ranger traited into traps would be able to completely lock down and kill during it someone trapped inside. Elites are meant to be powerful, but not that powerful

How can a ranger lock down an opponent while someone is trapped inside? There is obvious counterplay to this ability in that 1) Ranged Traps travel incredibly slow and can be dodged, 2) Spamming the charges on this trap means that you’re not utilizing the trap to its fullest extent (at most, you’ll have cripple and 9 stacks of bleed on you…probably 6 in a realistic environment after the third charge since the first application would wear off), and 3) Stability (which almost every class has readily available).

NyuuNeeChan.2891:

Shatter Storm – also too powerful. If fightning within limited space. It would be easy win skill against anything relying on boons. So if something inside it got immobilised, he would be hit by long duration cripple (just unfun), 9 stacks of confusion. And with it having 0,25 second activation time, wouldnt it be the fastest to use elite in game?

Yes, I have increased the casting time and slightly reduced the aoe radius. However, this elite was designed to punish exactly that…fighting in tight areas and bunching up. It is MEANT to be a counter and deterrent to stacking up. Plus it also grants much needed AoE boon removal to the mesmer (aside from null field).

NyuuNeeChan.2891:

Mantra of lyssa – -solidifies the role of the mantra mesmer as a support – as mantra traits are in power and precision trait lanes, i dont really think of them as support spells (damage mantra, mantra to interupt for damage, and mantra for stability stomp – how i use them)

Actually, Mantras purpose is to be primarily support. In particular, restorative mantras (heal on mantra channel) + Mantra of Resolve + Mantra of Concentration are all supportive in nature. You can even argue that Mantra of Distraction is support/control and Mantra of Pain becomes your primary healing skill with restorative mantras. Anet devs have mentioned several times and have made several changes to mantras to push them into more of a support role. If you don’t want to use Mantra of Lyssa to bolster your support further…simply don’t bring it? You can always bring another elite even if you’re using mantras.

NyuuNeeChan.2891:

Well of the Profane- Stability, regeneration, conditions to boons and dark field? That doesn’t really fit. Better give such thing to guardian. Oh wai…

Actually, Necros do have an ability similar to this already. It’s called Well of Power. This is basically the elite version of that (obviously more powerful because it’s Elite).

NyuuNeeChan.2891:

Arcane Quickening – no just no, it removes all counter play against ele most powerful attacks, as he can just flash to you and instantly pop for example Churning Earth.

This ability only lasts 3 seconds so there is actually plenty of counter play available to players fighting eles with this skill. If he flashes to you, dodge…you’ve pretty much negated this ability at that point. Also, blinding/stability(incase he blinks + earthquakes) are all readily available counters to this ability. Kiting the ele and watching his playstyle (if he suddenly shifts from defensive to offense) also helps.

NyuuNeeChan.2891:

Stone Sheath – armor of earth gives 6 sec of protection and 6 sec of stability on 90 sec cooldown, this elite would just make this skill look useless next to it.

I changed the recharge to 90 seconds. You should realize however that Earth Armor is going down to a 75 second recharge.

NyuuNeeChan.2891:

Signet of Elemental Essence – 600 radius is way to big for the effects of this skill. Tornado has 240 radius, and disables your skills replacing it with transformation ones. Here you would have 2,5 times bigger range, with 2,5 times lower cooldown. Air attunement effect would be just overpowered in wvw as it would destroy in 1,5 times bigger radius than swirling winds.

Radius reduced down to 360. Thanks for your feedback!

selan.8354:

hmm like the shatter storm, but i would like to make it do dmg instead of condis only. the echoing delusion could lead to a problem though. right now i could cat a pistolphantam, then use the elite and then signet of ether and boom i got 3 pistol phantasms up…could make me op.
but u are heading in the right direction as mesmer elites are not really build supporting and the mantra would be quiet nice. i would love that elite mantra.

Shatter storm would probably also tick for low damage, similar to how Chaos Storm ticks for low amounts of damage.

As for Echoing Delusions, that could be problematic although there is counterplay to the phantasms in that you can kill them quickly/evade most of their attacks. I would have no way to test how op that actually would be however as these spells are not actually in the game. Thanks for your feedback!

zapv.8051:

I like these ideas for one reason, they are build defining. Elites need to define your build. For instance many necromancers take plague because it helps in certain situation, but it is so situational it is useless most of the time. These might be a little strong, but the thought behind them is in the right direction.

Thank you! I know a few of them may be problematic in a few scenarios but there’s no way for me to test them and balance them as they’re not in the game. Build defining is definitely the way I wanted to go with these elites. If you have any other suggestions, feel free to add them!

Elementalist
1) Arcane Quickening – Your next ability is instant cast.
Type – Arcane
Recharge – 45 seconds
Duration – 3 seconds

-solidifies the role of the Arcane Elementalist as a self-empowering burster

2) Stone Sheath – Surround yourself in a stone sheath, weakening foes that strike you (only once per second for each attacker) and granting yourself protection, stability, and immunity to critical hits.
Type- Cantrip
Recharge – 90 seconds
Duration- 5 seconds
Protection- 5 seconds
Stability- 5 seconds
Stone Sheath – Gain immunity to critical hits and weaken foes that strike you (weakness duration: 3 seconds, only once per second for each attacker) for 5 seconds
Breaks stun

Chain Ability: Detonate your Stone Sheath to inflict damage, 10 seconds of weakness, cripple, and 5 stacks of bleed in a 360 radius around you.

-solidifies the role of the cantrips as defensive cooldowns that aid the Elementalist in surviving

3) Signet of Elemental Essence-
Passive: Grants a boon associated with your current attunement every 10 seconds to yourself and all nearby allies in a 240 radius (Fire-Might for 5 seconds, Water- Regeneration for 5 seconds, Air- Swiftness for 5 seconds, Earth- Protection for 3 seconds).
Active: Swirl an aura around you in a 360 radius for 5 seconds that grants different effects associated with your current attunement.
Fire Attunement – A flame aura erupts around you in a 360 radius for 5 seconds, dealing immense damage and burning every second.
Water Attunement – A wave erupts around you in a 360 radius for 5 seconds, healing nearby allies and cleansing a condition every second.
Air Attunement – A swirling aura erupts around you in a 360 radius for 5 seconds; dealing damage, destroying projectiles and blinding every second.
Earth Attunement- A shockwave erupts around you in a 360 radius for 5 seconds; dealing low damage, crippling, and stacking 3 stacks of bleed every second.

Type – Signet
Recharge- 60 seconds
Cast Time- 1 second

-solidifies the role of signets in both a supportive and control aspect as every attunement either debilitates foes or supports allies

Mesmer
1)Mantra of Lyssa- Meditate, charging a spell that will grant all boons to nearby allies.
Type-Mantra
Recharge – 60 seconds
Cast time- 2.75 seconds
Sequence- Mantra of Lyssa ? Power Blessing
Number of Casts- 2

Power Blessing- Grant all boons to nearby allies for 5 seconds.
Number of targets- 5
Radius- 360
Recharge- 5 seconds

-solidifies the role of the mantra mesmer as a support

2) Echoing Delusions- Your next Phantasm summoning ability summons an additional phantasm of the same type to attack your foe.
Type- Manipulation
Recharge- 45 seconds

-solidifies the role of the manipulation mesmer to confuse and deal heavy amounts of damage to enemies

3) Shatter Storm- Create a Shatter Storm at target area that pulses every second, removing 2 boons, preventing enemies inside the storm from being the target of boons, and inflicting cripple and 3 stacks of confusion per pulse for 5 seconds.
Type-Glamour
Recharge-90 seconds
Cast Time-2 seconds
Confusion (3 stacks) per pulse – 2 seconds
Cripple per pulse– 2 seconds
Number of Targets – 5
Pulse Interval – 1 second
Radius – 360
Duration – 5 seconds
Prevents Boons
Combo Field – Ethereal
Unblockable

-solidifies the role of glamour mesmers as debilitating enemies with harmful conditions and boon removal

Necromancer
1) Ravenous Swarm- Summon a swarm of ravens that strike out at up to 5 nearby enemies. Each raven steals life and heals the necromancer for half the damage dealt. Gain life force as well upon successful healing.
Type- Spectral
Duration- 6 seconds
Recharge- 45 seconds
Radius of Ravens- 600
Life Force Gain- 2%

-solidifies the role of spectrals as abilities used to contribute to the Necromancer’s tankiness and allowing them to succeed in attrition warfare

2) Grenth’s Feast- Apply Torment on yourself. Transform all boons from up to 5 enemies in target area into negative conditions.
Type- Corruption
Recharge – 90 seconds
Number of Targets – 5
Range- 1200
Radius – 600
Unblockable

-solidifies the role of the Corruption Necro as debilitating enemies with harmful conditions and boon removal

3) Well of the Profane- Instantly convert all conditions on yourself and allies into boons. Target area pulses, granting stability and regeneration every second, converting conditions on allies into boons, and granting Leech every second.
Type – Well
Stability per pulse – 2 seconds
Regeneration per pulse- 2 seconds
Leech per pulse – Your next attack steals 975(+0.4) health while in combat.
Conditions Converted to Boons per pulse– 1
Number of Targets – 5
Pulse Interval – 1 second
Duration – 5 seconds
Recharge – 90 seconds
Radius – 240
Breaks stun
Combo Field- Dark

-solidifies the role of the Well Necromancer as a support specializing in condition manipulation and lifestealing

PROBLEMS WITH CURRENT ELITES

-exceedingly long cooldowns make some of these abilities worthless
-most traits do not impact elites
-elites feel like one time abilities, “oh kitten” buttons that you rarely press throughout the game
-transformation elites deny access to utilities/healing and feel punishing to cast at times
-most elites serve no purpose in tying builds/roles together or rarely have synergy with a player’s build due to being too broad
-the below list will contain a few proposed elites (1 for Guardian, 2 for Ranger, 3 for Mesmer, 3 for Necromancer, 3 for Elementalist) that provide examples as to how elites can help fill in role niches
-the idea behind this list is that new elites should complement the core role of each UTILITY TYPE available to professions (for example: Guardian Shouts=Support…elite shout that assists in supporting, Necromancer Spectrals= Selfish Defense…elite spectral that assists the necro in surviving, Mesmer Glamours=Utility…elite glamour that assists in providing offensive and defensive utility…etc)

I’d like to state in advance that these suggestions are not definite and should not be criticized based on numbers. Feedback surrounding the core idea would be most suited and appreciated. Feel free to comment and also add your own elite concepts to professions not covered in the list!

NEW PROPOSED ELITE CONCEPTS

Guardian
1) “Shields Up”- Your next protection boon now stacks in intensity, for a total of 66% damage reduction, as well as in duration.
Type – Shout
Recharge- 45 seconds
Duration-5 seconds

-solidifies the role of the shout guardian as a support specialized in granting protection to his allies

Ranger
1) Barbed Trap- Set a trap that reveals, knocks down, cripples and applies 3 stacks of bleeding. This ability can be cast three times before going on cooldown.
Type-Trap
Recharge- 60 seconds
Charges- 3
Trap Radius- 360
Effective Radius- 420
Reveal- 3 seconds
Knock down- 1.5 seconds
Cripple- 3 seconds
Bleeding (3 stacks)- 3 seconds
Unblockable

-solidifies the role of the trap ranger as an offensive condition spec specializing in anti-stealth

2) “For Melandru!”- Instead of attacking, your pet will protect you and your allies by absorbing all direct damage they would have taken. The pet is immune to direct damage during this time. Once protected, allies cannot be protected again for 20 seconds.
Type- Shout
Recharge- 45 seconds
Duration- 3 seconds
Radius- 600
Prevents Capture-Point Contribution
Breaks Stun

-solidifies the role of the shout ranger as a defensive support that relies on commanding its pet to provide beneficial effects

Stand The Wall.6987:

Ok everyone for the last time, you have to consider the combination of an increased healing power with another passive, like condi and retal…
Passives are what many agree to be ruining the game. Enough passives and the trinity becomes necessary to keep the whole thing together.

Care to elaborate? Passives as in traits? Signets? Skim through the entire thread to see what we came up with. I don’t think we have to FORCE a trinity…the game is fine as is.

Anet recently stated that they want to make support builds better in all aspects of the game. So, In addition to some of the proposed changes made in this thread, I’d also like to highlight some other interest points:
- Anet should move towards normalizing/or at least granting most boons to most support specs
-Guardians reign supreme as they just have to mash a bunch of buttons to spam their allies with boons
-while Guardians should remain one of the stronger support specs due to its relative low level of difficulty to perform exceptional, other support specs should be able to produce the same results (albit in different ways)
-therefore, guardians still maintain their niche as a strong and effective build due to their relative ease and potency but don’t rule out the possibility for other professions to provide just as much support

-Examples:
1) Elementalist Niche: Attuning to elements/blasting combo fields to achieve similar effects (Could be worked on a little more…granting stability to allies/and protection need to be improved…otherwise, in a relatively great spot)
-2) Mesmer Niche: Channeling Mantras/overloading themselves with boons and then transferring boons with Signet of Inspiration (Could be worked on…inconsistencies with small ranges on traits prevent this spec from giving regeneration and protection to allies…otherwise, in a relatively good spot)

Hello Thund! While I understand the attempt to somewhat mitigate the problems associated with healing power…I feel adding more boons to an already pretty substantial list of boons may overcomplicate the game. Healing power, as it was mentioned in other threads, should impact most of the existing boons rather than cluttering the existing system with more boons that do little to tackle the core problem with healing power.

Bravery – Interesting mechanic, however I feel that this may become extremely powerful in conjunction with Regeneration and other Profession- Specific/Food/Rune regeneration sources (Guardian’s Virtue of Resolve, Warrior Healing Signet, Elementalist’s Soothing Mist…etc).

Reversal – This is the only one on your list that I would advocate as it reminds me of GW1’s Reversal of Fortune which was an extremely satisfying and fun skill. Stacking in intensity may be tricky to do though…do the number of attacks that completely heal you stack or does the healing amount stack? I am confused. If anything, this boon should scale in duration, similar to how Aegis stacks (given that they’re both blocking attacks).

Purity – Not a huge fan of this one as it really has no place in this game. Why would I waste time giving allies a boon that reduces the duration of conditions when most support specs/professions have options to downright remove conditions? Aside from Purging Flames (which does both, remove 3 conditions and reduce the duration of incoming conditions by 33%), I see no purpose for this boon.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

I was thinking along the same lines a while back actually. In my ideal world, you would decrease baseline effectiveness of boons by 33%, to avoid power creep, and increase maximum effectiveness by 33% so that people are rewarded for investing into a support stat. So a fully specced protection would be 44% reduction, while unspecced it would end up at 22%.

Exactly! If the baseline effects of boons need to be lowered by a certain value to preserve balance, I am all aboard for that…just as long as there is a clear and visible reward for fully spec’d supports (like you mentioned).

Chaos Archangel.5071:

@Kinky: Happy New Year! And wow that is an incredibly thoughtful and creative idea. (Dat vigor would be OP though) I’ll happily try to link it in the OP, and while I’d love for a change like that to be implemented it would require the entire game to be reworked. ….

Thank you! Yeah, you are absolutely right about vigor…I just checked the wiki and a dodge provides about 0.75 seconds of immunity and the original proposed change suggests Blur for an additional 0.6 seconds? Definitely changing that right now so that it’s a much lower value since that would be ridiculous.

I’m also changing swiftness so that it feels even more clutch than just another passive bonus to movement speed (also because a lot of support specs can permanently upkeep swiftness…running 10% faster than other builds for large periods of time is pretty ridiculous as well). The idea behind that change is that it provides those few critical seconds of insane movement speed (to allow your allies to either escape pursuers OR to catch up to a fleeing opponent) while tapering off to normal speeds after a short duration. That allows supports to feel even more rewarded for casting a clutch swiftness, rather than just casting swiftness on cooldown to maintain the movement speed throughout combat.

I don’t necessarily think the entire game has to be reworked to accommodate for these changes…looking at it from a broad picture, I’m not really suggesting any huge or radical mechanical changes that require the game to undergo such a vast restructuring. Most of these changes just add simple functions or build on original mechanics. While some boons may cause problems in certain instances, I am sure that it can be readily and easily remedied through testing/reporting (just like other things in this game). Thank you for linking it in your post though, much appreciated

I have always thoroughly enjoyed the support role in almost every game (MMOs/MOBAs) that I played. The idea of helping others and securing kills was always such a rewarding and satisfying experience for me. I typically find myself going beyond the “support meta”, and attempt to make unorthodox support builds to test their validity. In most cases, I succeed and I have that much more fun with a truly unique playstyle. One instance where I haven’t quite been able to reach my maximum “enjoyment” is the support Mesmer, more notably the Inspiration Trait line. There are a few inconsistencies/range limitations that severely hamper the Mesmer’s ability to supports its allies. Here are a few quality of life changes that I feel need to take place to make the Support Mesmer that much more competitive:

1) Vigorous Revelation (Inspiration, Adept, Major): Increase radius from 240 to 600.

-the reasoning behind this change is because this major trait has a similar mechanical functionality to that of “Shattered Conditions” where shattering grants a supportive effect to allies

-why then, do two similar “shatter” traits, have such radical radius differences (ie; Shattered Conditions has a radius of 600 while Vigorous Revelation has a radius of 240)?

-thus, in an attempt to improve the consistency of the supportive shatter traits, I feel that a 600 radius buff would go a long way in improving the traceability of these traits, both individually and jointly

2) Phantasmal Healing (Inspiration, Master, Minor): Increase radius from 240 to 600.

-this is essentially our only form of granting regen to a party and for the inconsistency associated with the randomness of Phantasm Ai, there is simply not enough reward to warrant the usefulness of this trait

-there are often times where I will run up to an individual to cast a Phantasm (Phantasmal Warlock so that it spawns near myself/ally) where I am within a 240 radius of the injured ally, but the phantasm spawns behind me or off to a random location and the ally doesn’t receive the benefits from this trait

-additionally, given the absurd survivability of phantasms…a modest increase in range would at least allow the trait to maybe tick once or twice for an entire party before either being shattered or destroyed by AoE

-thus, an increase in range would compensate for both the abysmal survivability of phantasms and the randomness of phantasm ai/movement

3) Shattered Conditions (Inspiration, Grandmaster, Major): Condition removal takes place when you start the shatter skill, based on the number of illusions active, rather than after the illusions have actually shattered.

-the reasoning behind this change is because, similar to the change made to Vigorous Revelation, Shattered conditions has a similar mechanical functionality to that of “Restorative Illusions”; both which compete for the grandmaster major trait under the Inspiration tree

-why is it then that Restorative Illusions, as copied directly from the wiki, “heals when you start the shatter skill, not when your illusions actually shatter” and Shattered Conditions doesn’t remove conditions when you start the shatter skill?

-also, the benefits of this trait are INSANELY difficult to trace due to a plethora of reasons: 1) Your illusions may be killed as they are reaching the target, essentially neutering the benefits of this trait entirely; 2) Your target may run out of range from your illusions which again, neuters this grandmaster trait

-when I activate a condition removing ability, I want the condition to be instantly cleansed…not anywhere between 2-10 seconds (or never) when the illusions actually decide to finally shatter on the target

-thus, changing this ability so that the condition removal takes place when you actually start the shatter skill, will not only remove frustrations associated with this trait but also allow for clutch condition cleansing from the mesmer

I’ve only been able to thoroughly test and come up with these traits as problems for my particular support spec. However, I welcome others to include problematic traits for their respective support mesmers in this thread as well so that we may compile all of them in one thread.

CONTINUED FROM ABOVE

5) Retaliation: For every 100 Support Power, your retaliation also heals allies for 7% of the damage done. There is an internal cooldown of 1 second per ally.

Retaliation already serves as an incredibly powerful disengage tool as its damage procs have no internal cooldown and can trigger multiple times and in quick succession. Increasing the damage on an already powerful boon would have broken it. Allowing it to heal allies however gives rise to new support builds and provides other ways for supports to sustain their party without needing heavy access to regeneration (as well as maintaining Retaliation’s core purpose; mainly as a deterrent to stop enemies from attacking you). Note that at 1500 Support Power, Retaliation will heal for 105% of the amount of damage its dealing every second (granted that the ally is being hit). The one second internal cooldown was added to prevent hyper sustain situations where fast attacks would rapidly heal an ally.

6) Vigor: For every 100 Support Power, your vigor also grants allies [Blur](http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blur) for 0.016 seconds at the end of their dodge.

Vigor is, similar to Protection, one of the most powerful boons in the game which is why it scales slightly worse than the other boons. It is also one of the harder boons to permanently maintain on yourself (or others) and as such, requires proper timing to utilize it to its fullest potential. In an effort to preserve the essence of Vigor (dodging), this change was implemented to allow allies more breathing room with their dodges. At 1500 Support Power, Vigor would grant Blur for 0.24 seconds after an ally dodges.

7) Swiftness: For every 100 Support Power, your swiftness grants an additional 2.2% movement speed for 2 seconds. After 2 seconds, movement speed tapers back to 33% for the remaining duration of Swiftness.

The idea behind that change is to provides those few critical seconds of insane movement speed (to allow your allies to either escape motivated pursuers OR to catch fleeing opponents) while tapering off to normal speeds after the two second duration. This change, consistent with the other changes, allows supports to feel even more rewarded for casting a clutch swiftness to secure a kill or to prevent an ally from sure death. The goal here is to again, reward smart casting of swiftness as opposed to mindless spamming. At 1500 Support Power, Swiftness would grant an additional 33% movement speed for 2 seconds (total of 66% movement speed for the first three seconds of the swiftness boon), before tapering off to 33% for the remainder of the Swiftness boon.

Food Changes: While we’re on the topic of increasing the effectiveness of Healing Power, is it possible that we get food options that also increase our effectiveness? I find it a little silly that we’re forced to use Chocolate Omnomberry Creams (MF Food??) and either Sharpening Stones or Maintenance oils as Support Specs where as other specs have food options catered specifically to their roles. Here are a couple of suggestions:

1) Wrench Nourishment:

i. Blessed Focusing Crystal – +100 Condition Damage, +10% Boon Duration, +10 Experience from Kills

ii. Blessed Maintenance Oil – +100 Precision, +10% Boon Duration, +10 Experience from Kills

iii. Blessed Sharpening Stone – +100 Power, +10% Boon Duration, +10 Experience from Kills

iv. Blessed Alchemic Potion – +100 Support Power, +10% Boon Duration, +10 Experience from Kills

2) Apple Nourishment:

i. Chocolate Lava Cake – +70 Support Power, +20% Boon Duration, +10 Experience from Kills

TLDR: Healing power should be renamed to Support Power to allow boons to scale with higher amounts of Support Power. This is done primarily to emphasize the role of supports in parties and to increase the utility they provide for their allies. Some examples of said scaling include: increased power and condition damage from Might, increased damage reduction from Protection, and granting your dodges [Blur](http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blur) while under Vigor. These changes are explained in more detail in the Boon Scaling segment.

Chaos, you are welcome to put this (if it allows you and you have enough room) in your main post if you’d like

Hey Chaos! Happy New Year, hope your holidays were amazing and you rested well! Glad to see you’re still advocating the support archetype in this game (as am I). I actually made a thread on gw2reddit about a month ago with some ideas on how to increase the attractiveness of healing power for support players. In addition to the amazing ideas you included (faster rezzing, gear choices, better loot + tag options…etc), my thread proposed the following:

First, in order to make healing power more of an appealing stat for support players, I propose that Healing Power is renamed to Support Power. We will attempt to increase the effectiveness of this stat by not only allowing it to increase outgoing heals and regeneration but by also baking more utility into boons. As such, we will allow boons to scale in intensity and implement additional effects to said boons to make Support Power a more worthwhile stat.

Boon Scaling: Before listing a few proposed changes to the current boon system, I’d like to state in advance that these suggestions are not definite and should not be criticized based on numbers. Feedback surrounding the core idea would be most suited and appreciated. With each proposal, a brief explanation will be provided to highlight why each change is taking place. The assumed “equilibrium” Support Power used will be 1500 support power. Aside from Aegis, and Stability, the following changes should take place to allow boons to scale with Support Power:

1) Might: For every 100 Support Power, each might stack applies an additional 1 power and 1 condition damage.

Since you are fully specced into Support Power, the might stacks you apply to your party should SOMEWHAT make up for the damage lost in rolling full Cleric’s/Apothecary/Magi’s gear. The only case I can think of where this proposed change may be a bit problematic is with the Guardian’s Staff 4 (Empower) ability as it can give a total of 12 might stacks with a full channel. Nontheless, full support guardians do very little in terms of damage and should make up for it with intensified boons and heals. At 1500 Support Power, each might stack will grant 15 additional power and condition damage for a grand total of 50 power and 50 condition damage per might stack. While it was explained earlier that a support’s offensive boons should assist in increasing their damage, it should not alleviate the problem entirely and that is why a low number was used. Bringing another DPS should still have its benefits.

2) Fury: For every 100 Support Power, fury grants an additional 0.66% critical hit chance and 0.66% critical hit damage.

In addition to making the obvious change of increasing the critical hit chance obtained, fury will now also increase critical hit damage for reasons similar to the ones listed under Might. At 1500 Support Power, Fury will grant an additional 9.9/10% critical hit chance and 9.9/10% critical hit damage for a grand total of +30% critical hit chance and +10% critical hit damage.

3) Protection: For every 100 Support Power, protection grants an additional 0.66% damage reduction.

Protection is already an incredibly powerful boon…the only comment I can make regarding this is that the base damage reduction may need to be reduced down to 30% to accommodate for this change. The idea here is to solidify the role of the support as a protector of his allies…so it’s therefore important that their protection feels stronger than protection given out from non-supportive builds. Note that at 1500 Support Power, protection will gain an additional 9.9% damage reduction for a grand total of 42.9% or 43% damage reduction.

4) Regeneration: For every 100 Support Power, your regeneration heals for an additional 12.5 health per second (original functionality). Furthermore, for every 100 Support Power, your regeneration heals for an additional 0.03% per 1% of health your allies are missing.

In addition to maintaining its original functionality, regeneration should also serve as a “clutch” boon that supports want to time carefully in order to assist their allies in their most critical moments. In an attempt to reward that behavior, regeneration would now also scale based on an ally’s missing health percentages. Let’s take the equilibrium value of Support Power as an example where you have 1500 Support Power. At 1500 Support Power, your regeneration will be healing an additional 187.5 health per second (original functionality). Also, your regeneration will have a scaling of [(0.03/100)*(1500/100))]=0.0045 or 0.45% extra healing per 1% of health your ally is missing. To clarify, suppose I cast regeneration on an ally who’s missing 50% of his health. Regeneration will now heal (130 base + 187.5 normal scaling) + (0.45)(0.5)(130+187.5) = 317.5 + 71.44 = 388.94 for the duration of that regeneration boon. The goal here is to reward smart casting of regeneration as opposed to mindless spamming.

1) Grindiness associated with ascended weapons: While Bloodstone Bricks, Empyreal Fragments, and Globs of Dark Matter are relatively easy to obtain, myself and many of my guildmates/friends are having an incredibly difficult time acquiring Dragonite Ore. Is anything going to be done so as to make Dragonite ore more easily obtainable or perhaps reducing the amount of dragonite ore needed per recipe? I don’t like being forced to do temple runs as the only efficient means of obtaining Dragonite Ore.

2) Lack of Interesting Elite Skills, aside from a very small list of exceptions: It has been claimed countless times that most Elite Skills do not have any synergy with players’ builds. Is there any hope that GW2 reverts back to the way Elite Skills performed in GW1 where they were a core focus of your build and role rather than a three minute cooldown that offers very little synergy with your build? A good start would be adding at least one elite skill per unique utility skill type for each profession (Necromancer would involve having at least 1 Elite Corruption, 1 Elite Well, 1 Elite Minion, 1 Elite Signet, and 1 Elite Spectral).
Examples:
Desecrate Boons: Transform 5 boons from foes in target area into negative conditions and prevent those foes from being the target of boons for 3 seconds.

Cooldown: 90 seconds
Range: 1200
Radius: 240
Type: Elite Corruption
Unblockable
-solidifies the role of the necro as an offensive support with debuffing capabilities.

Well of the Profane: Conjure a well of the profane to transfer all conditions from allies standing inside the well to yourself per pulse, heal allies, and increase the chance of triggering projectile finishers to 100%.

Cooldown: 90 seconds
Duration: 10 seconds
Radius: 240
Heal: 152 (+0.4 Healing Power Coefficient) every pulse
Projectile Finisher Increase: 100%
Combo Field: Dark
Type: Elite Well
-solidifies the role of the necromancer as a defensive support…providing light healing (exact amount as Well of Blood) per second, buffing lifesteal healing from dark wells so that each projectile fired within the well triggers the lifesteal finisher, and maintaining the theme of the class by manipulating conditions from allies

3) Lack of interesting skills and traits: An extension of the 2nd point, but what I’d really like for discussion is what is being done about all the unused traits and utility skills. In the Looking Ahead: Guild Wars 2 in 2013, Colin Johanson claimed that there would be a “regular addition of new skills and traits to expand your characters and builds”(https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/looking-ahead-guild-wars-2-in-2013). How is the progress on these skills and traits? Are we to expect that updates of old skills and traits are classified as the “new skills and traits”? Where are the regular additions of these skills and traits?

It costs 2 Laurels and 50 Badges of Honor to buy.

DeShadowWolf.6854:

Reikou.7068:

KinkyPotato.4219:

Fact: 65 gold is harder to get than 4-5 laurels.

Depends what you are comparing, and how you are comparing. 65 Gold is (probably) far easier to get than 4-5 laurels if all you have is 3 days to acquire either (and you’ve already completed your monthly >____>)

65 Gold is (probably) far harder to get that 4-5 laurels if you aren’t putting it in a completely loaded situation that doesn’t actually occur, really.

Reikou.7068:

KinkyPotato.4219:

That’s all that needs to be said about the issue and I think my decision is not ungodly at all…rather it is rational and economical. I feel that if we were in each others’ shoes and the game only had defensive infusion slots and you were questioning why Anet didn’t include offensive infusion slots, you’d be equally baffled by your own arguments.

If Anet had only defensive infusion slots in Ascended Weapons I would be slightly annoyed, but again, it does not take away from the fact that the option to have an offensive infusion in that defensive infusion slot exists.

I might suggest a menu like the one for choosing the stat replacement for mf gear that allows you to choose offensive or defensive. Also, just because you would be willing to spend that 65 gold does not mean that other people should have to spend that much to get the stat they want. Nor does that mean it is balanced.

Reikou.7068:

What you are trying to do is put a gold-value on in-game character statistics. Unfortunately this is impossible. There is no amount of gold in the game that will give you that extra 5 vit/50HP you need to survive conditions that you can get from a Vital infusion for example.

There may not be any way to put a Gold value on 5 vit/50 health. But there are ways to put a Gold value on what it costs to make that infusion.

Reikou.7068:

KinkyPotato.4219:

~snip~

It isn’t, and no where do I ever say that it is.

O RLY? I think you did

Reikou.7068:

Niim.9260:

~snip~

but it IS balanced. You can get defensive infusions on your offensive weapon slotted Weapons if you absolutely wanted to.

Thank you, exactly what I was trying to get at. I definitely agree with the dropdown menu that they have similar to the MF/Legendary slots in that it allows you to choose what type of infusion slot you want.

And I’m still not in the slightest convinced at his arguments as to how this is balanced in any way for the other specs in this game. And how is getting 65 gold EASIER than getting 4 laurels? Try multiplying that number by 4 infusions if you have two weapon sets. Is it really easier to make 340 gold than 16 laurels? I KNOW that it’s not. Unrealistic situations are unrealistic. Sure if you say “OH WAIT I have 300% Magic Find and managed to get a precursor in 1 day” then of course it’s “easier”. Dailies take ~10-15 mins PER day, and a monthly can be completed within for a burst of 10 laurels EASILY. But of course, I and all the others in this thread play the game wrong in that 340 gold is easier to earn than 16 laurels.

Shemsu.8721:

Did it not occur to op or other qqers that weapons are offensive in nature and armor is defensive in nature, and that infusions would reflect that?

Unless it’s been definitively stated somewhere, then no, it doesn’t “occur” to me. By that accord, why does the shield have offensive infusions then? Aren’t shields “defensive in nature”?

Reikou.7068:

Niim.9260:

Reikou.7068:

Niim.9260:

Reikou.7068:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Versatile_Vital_Infusion
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Versatile_Resilient_Infusion
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Versatile_Healing_Infusion

you’re welcome.

So I should have to spend 65 more gold an infusion slot because I want to support stat? So for my four weapons that comes out to 390 gold… seems like a great approach.

The option is there. You just choose not to use it. This is not the game’s fault. This is your fault.

I want it to be balanced. With rings and accessories it is balanced for both offense and defense. We both had access to one offense and one defense, we could choose to spend the money and use a versatility infusion for the second one. I have no complaints of that kind of setup.

With weapons it is just offense and thus an issue as it stands now. As you will see in my first post I suggested adding defensive to shields and making all two handed one of each, this balances the options between offense and defense.

Unless armor will be all defense slots, there is no balance by having only offense slots for weapons.

but it IS balanced. You can get defensive infusions on your offensive weapon slotted Weapons if you absolutely wanted to.

What ever happened to players helping other players? This is the exact mentality that drives communities apart and makes everyone so hostile towards each other. Please explain to me how 65 gold is balanced in comparison to getting 4 laurels (under realistic circumstances).

Reikou.7068:

KinkyPotato.4219:

Do you agree that it’s fair and just for you to spend 65 gold per infusion slot while some players and specs get to spend 4-5 laurels to fill their influsion slots (which are without a doubt, A LOT easier to get than 65 gold from a casual player’s point of view)? If you think it is, then kudos to you but I’ve been playing this game since launch and I’ve rarely, if ever, had over 100 gold in my bank (now wallet).

“Fair” or not is irrelevant, because “fair” is subjective.

Fact. Versatile Defensive Infusions exist in game.

Fact. It is possible for players to put Versatile Defensive Infusions into offensive infusion slots.

And while I agree with many of your sentiments, they are all unfortunately subjective opinions that really don’t stand up the point that the option exists, but you simply do not want to use it for one ungodly reason or another.

Fair is subjective sure, but there are many things that people can universally agree on as crossing the bounds. Let’s not delve into the philosophy behind what is fairness because this is a thread about a video game, not about philosophical ideals and beliefs.

Fact: 65 gold is harder to get than 4-5 laurels.

That’s all that needs to be said about the issue and I think my decision is not ungodly at all…rather it is rational and economical. I feel that if we were in each others’ shoes and the game only had defensive infusion slots and you were questioning why Anet didn’t include offensive infusion slots, you’d be equally baffled by your own arguments.

Reikou.7068:

KinkyPotato.4219:

That seems like a pathetic solution to a problem that was in no way created by the OP’s statement at all…rather by the shortcomings of the designers to include options FOR ALL TYPES of players. What you’re suggesting is INCREDIBLY inefficient and not his fault at all.

Would you REALLY spend 65 gold for an Omni infusion per infusion slot (especially considering most classes have two weapon sets)? Yeah…didn’t think so.

If it was indeed the BiS item for my character then yes, I would.

Do you agree that it’s fair and just for you to spend 65 gold per infusion slot while some players and specs get to spend 4-5 laurels to fill their influsion slots (which are without a doubt, A LOT easier to get than 65 gold from a casual player’s point of view)? If you think it is, then kudos to you but I’ve been playing this game since launch and I’ve rarely, if ever, had over 100 gold in my bank (now wallet).

Reikou.7068:

Niim.9260:

Reikou.7068:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Versatile_Vital_Infusion
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Versatile_Resilient_Infusion
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Versatile_Healing_Infusion

you’re welcome.

So I should have to spend 65 more gold an infusion slot because I want to support stat? So for my four weapons that comes out to 390 gold… seems like a great approach.

The option is there. You just choose not to use it. This is not the game’s fault. This is your fault.

That seems like a pathetic solution to a problem that was in no way created by the OP’s statement at all…rather by the shortcomings of the designers to include options FOR ALL TYPES of players. What you’re suggesting is INCREDIBLY inefficient and not his fault at all.

Would you REALLY spend 65 gold for an Omni infusion per infusion slot (especially considering most classes have two weapon sets)? Yeah…didn’t think so.

Yeah, I came on just to post this exact topic as well. And like Niim already pointed out, why do we have to spend THAT much more gold to get the infusions that we want for our playstyle when all an individual has to do is spend 4-5 laurels (depending on wvw infusions or not) to get bonuses to their stats? Is it REALLY that much to ask for to get ascended weapons with 2 defensive infusion slots AS well as weapons with 1 offensive and 1 defensive?

It doesn’t seem that difficult…I thought we were supposed to play the way we wanted to play. Including only offensive infusions seems like a HUGE oversight for A LOT of the specs and PLAYERS in this game. Does this mean that when ascended armor comes out we’ll also only have offensive infusion slots as well? Come on Anet…I thought you were better than this.

Hmmm…when I tested it, it worked on myself but I didn’t test it with wounded allies near me. However, the heal amount is ridiculously low even with healing power. I had ~1.45k healing power and the sigil healed me for a whopping 529 health.

Archon.6481:

You listed explorer’s twice.

Thanks, already removed it

Why is it that after approximately 7 months, an overwhelming amount of stat combinations for backpieces are STILL missing? Additionally, why did Arenanet decide to implement stat combos as rings and accessories but downright FAIL to add them as backpieces to either the Fractal Merchant or the mystic forge recipes? Where is the promised “play the way you want to play” philosophy when we are downright gimping ourselves by playing other specs not supported by gear options? This has huge ramifications for fractal players especially as they are missing a potential +10 to Agony Resistance. You are DENYING your players access to content. Arenanet, you are STILL missing ascended backpiece stats with the following nomenclatures:

Knight’s
Rampager
Cleric
Magi’s
Celestial
Explorer
Apothecary (not including the one time Scerlite Karka Shell)
Carrion

Please let me know if I missed any other stat combinations. Thanks!

Very well written post. I agree with all of your points and I love how you utilized an argument/counter-argument strategy to convey your ideas.

I’m personally not a fan of BLOB strategy either…it HEAVILY rewards incorrect positioning when in reality (and most other games), BLOBs would get instantly gibbed from AoE. While I’m not asking for the removal of BLOBs completely, an AoE increase cap would force people to position themselves strategically. Isn’t this what the game is all about? Players SHOULD be worried about their position and they SHOULD be weary AoE fields…not blobbing up together to completely mitigate its effects.

The solutions are simple, elegant, and would go a long way in fixing the current boring and stale mentality of zergs. A long term solution would also be the redesigning of the WvW maps to include smaller/medium sized objectives while still having room for larger zerg vs zerg combat.

Not to mention, they also specified numerous times that they want this game to be a successful e-sport. Now I understand that lack of tooltip information greatly handicaps casuals (in fact, all players), this has tremendous ramifications in sPvP. An e-sport revolves around knowing EXACTLY how much damage is being increased, what the internal cooldowns are, what the exact functionality is, interactions with runes/sigils…etc.

If this game has any hope of becoming an e-sport, it should definitely start by going over EVERY single weapon skill, trait, and utility skill…and listing EXACTLY the CORRECT information that needs to be displayed there (notice how I stressed correct). It’s been 7 months since the game has been released and tooltips are still outdated/vague…how much longer are you going to keep us guessing? It’s completely unacceptable. And their original answer of “We want players to explore and discover everything associated with skills/traits” is a disgusting and pathetic excuse for developer laziness. Their statement of “We took everything you loved from Guild Wars 1” is FAR from the truth.

“To make playing in our open world worthwhile, we’ll make it rewarding enough for players to spend their time there across all levels. It’s extremely important that we stay true to our philosophy that you should be able to play Guild Wars 2 the way you want to play the game in order to reach the most powerful rewards”.

The above quote is from Colin Johanson from https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/colin-johanson-on-guild-wars-2-in-the-months-ahead/. Why is it then that we are being FORCED to get ascended accessories through guild missions only? This is a DIRECT violation of your “philosophy”. Placing extremely high barriers to access rewards through other gametypes is going DIRECTLY against this. Why? I think it’s safe to assume that this company has lost A LOT of credibility from launch…imagine, such radical changes to philosophies only 6 months after release.

I’m astounded, surprised, and extremely disappointed that GW2’s LEAD DESIGNER actually just typed that.

Why is this aspect of the game being so poorly handled? This is INCREDIBLY messy and frustrating beyond belief. I cannot believe that a company once praised for its quality assurance (ala Guild Wars 1) is currently cutting corners and not implementing every possible stat combination. It would have been a thousand times more efficient had you just introduced an insignia and let us pick (from a preset list of course) which stat combos we wanted. That way, you wouldn’t have to run around introducing every single possible stat combination as an armor piece…rather just introduce the insignia for the armor piece and let us choose on our own. This is so UNACCEPTABLE and disappointing that we have to wait AT LEAST another month before Anet decides to add the other missing sets. And by then, they would have probably introduced Ascended Accessories (Earrings)…

It has been approximately 4 days since I’ve been experiencing incredibly high latency while playing GW2. I’ve verified multiple times that it ISN’T in fact my ISP since I’ve contacted them multiple times, checked my ping on various sites (ping was 15 MS), checked my ping with OTHER games (LoL), and done various virus scans/gimmick fixes like disabling my firewall. None of them seemed to have fixed the issue.

Guild wars 2 is currently the only application on my computer that, upon checking the resource monitor, displays a 490-500 under the Latency tab while League of Legends displays 100. Why is this happening? Please fix it…it makes playing the game extremely unenjoyable.

EDIT: I’m on DragonBrand, and I live in Ontario.

Any more comments? I think it’s an elegant solution to the current problem of staleness that doesn’t completely require an overhaul of the current system. Rather, all it needs is just a fine-tuned addition to supplement the available weapons and to provide greather depth and customization without breaking the game.

In general, the thief stealing abilities are ridiculously over the top when compared to a classe’s actual capabilities. Mesmers don’t even have the ability to gain all boons (unless using Rune of Lyssa)! Nor do Guardians have access to a 4 second Daze…

Orpheal.8263:

They shouldn’t change Runes for this, but instead they should implement a new system for this…

There should exist a TALENT SYSTEM, where players can make changes and improvements to skills like here being shown…etc.

I definitely agree entirely with your post which is why I made this topic in the first place. I don’t think it’d become that much MORE difficult as some people are suggesting in the forum because I’m already using EXISTING mechanics to supplement the currently lackluster weapon skills. Imagine the possibilities if you could damage with every weapon, support with every weapon, control with every weapon, and survive/have utility with every weapon? It’d make for an incredibly fresh and fun gaming experience for all as you could simply slot out different talents if you want to try something new.

Professions would still maintain their current themes and feels and players would be able to mix and match to tailor their weapons according to their wants.

MithranArkanere.8957:

GW2 already has a similar system, but instead having variations for each skill, and passives, both passives and alternate skills are included in the trait system.

GW2 as of right now, does NOT have a system like this. While utilities can be manipulated to fulfill certain roles, weapon skills in of themselves, cannot be manipulated (of if they can, it’s severely limited). Currently, every weapon has an underlying role. Examples: Guardian Staff = Support, Guardian Hammer = Control, Guardian Mace = Survivability. The implementation of this system would simply make a Guardian Staff/Guardian Hammer/Guardian Mace somewhat comparable in terms of dealing damage, controlling enemies, and having additional utility. Of course their underlying roles will remain the same, but they can be slightly altered with the talents for even more customization.