Guild Wars 2

Basically. I checked my network numbers and tried playing Tribes Ascend (the most delay crippled game I have.) Everything seems to be working normally.

But since about 9/27 (I think since 9/26 but I didn’t play) There’s been a delay whenever I act.

IE. I’m in water attunement, I want to switch to earth and throw up magnetic aura. It happens anywhere from 1/2 to 5ish seconds later.

Sometimes the keypresses take too long and just get dropped.

Same for any action really. Any ability i want to activate will have a delay, sometimes a small one that I could play with but often a huge one. It feels almost exactly like wvwvw did during the BWEs.

Same on Mesmer as Elementalist.

EDIT: This has been teasted mostly in hotjoin PvP, it is also an issue in random world PvE though.

I think both groups deserve to enjoy the game. Thats why different dungeons and paths can have different difficulties.

The lines in hoh were often a little more blurred with more defensive team builds resulting in less ability to punish the enemy for over extending but more ability to sustain agressive pressure. This came partially because of builds intending to hold the alter and partially because of the lack of team splitting objectives (bar relic run)

At any rate, i ish agree, but im just down about the whole thing right now.

I feel like we went from legos to linkin logs, because we did. We dumbed it down, and no matter how we try to add back the depth of strategy that i loved… 5th graders might feel challenged being asked to go back and do multiplication flash cards with 3rd graders, they might not be that fast… but theyre bound to miss getting asked a fraction question. I wanted to be challenged in a way that this game will probably never offer.

Its actually a real dissapointment because im hardly a rocked surgeon. Im a janitor who might complete a bacgelore degree in something not too hard some day.  i shouldnt have to feel like im too smart for a videogame community, i really shouldnt.

Fair enough, i probably shouldnt say we can hope for a spvp update on 10/2. In my defense i am saying hope, and didnt say there is a source on that.

The 10/1 patch is going to be pretty big though, there are a number of dev posts commenting that this or that has been fixed and is still in internal testing scheduled for the 10/1 patch. A lot of those remarks have been pve environment fixes, but i think i recall a skill bug or two mentioned in such a way.

One false anticipation i can clear up: the 10/1 patch will probably release on 10/2. Anet labels patches with the day they worked on them.

Still, my honest guess is that some small bone will be thrown our way. Likely something simple like no more gear switching during a match.

@Cyric: Well I think we have some common ground here. I don’t think balancing decisions should come from a top 1% player stomping the lower 50% of the player base. It’s difficult to separate out what’s overpowered about the class and what’s overpowered about the player.

So when I try to discuss balance, I spend some time playing the class, but since I’m not in that top 1% I try to watch videos of players that seem like they are maybe close. IE Team Paradigm vs Team Legacy. Because I trust that both teams have very highly skilled players who know how to counter the thief, and they have highly skilled players playing the thief, I can get a better view of what actually is and isn’t overpowered.

For example, I have a hard time dealing with a certain thief build on some of my characters. It uses Assassin’s Signet and Backstab to open, and then follows quickly with a steal (with the damage trait) and spamming heart seeker.

In watching videos of more skilled players, however, I can see that this build is not nearly as effective. This primarily seems to have to do with player awareness. As a result, you didn’t see me cry that theif damage is too high and why did I get crit for 11k — the damage might be high at my current level of play, but that just means I need to get better at the game.

In watching the videos, however, I can see that the thief does do some very potent damage (a very capable killer), that it is extremely mobile, and that it offers a good amount of utility in a team fight. I also notice that the high end teams very rarely play without a Thief in their lineup and when I get the chance I talk to them about the whys and why nots.

The impression I walk away with is this: The Thief is not quite as invaluable to a team as the monk was to a GW1 team. It’s a class that you simply cannot do without at least 1 of. Stacking thieves, or monks, wouldn’t be all that effective, but it is a role that you cannot leave unfulfilled and still feel competitive. (This is a slight exaggeration. I think a no thief team has much better odds than a no monk team. Still, the comparison has some truth to it.)

Since GW2 is a game that’s all about not having indispensable classes, this means some balancing changes are in order.

I am simply proposing what I consider to be the most mild meaningful nerf. I actually don’t want the theifs incredible burst damage to get nerfed, even though it currently forces me to run with more vitality and toughness than I would otherwise require. This is just a challenge for me to overcome as a player.

So we know the blog is coming very soon. fingers crossed for Friday

We know the 10/1 patch is going to be major, and the blog might come with it. It’s not even unreasonable for us to hope that a major tPvP wishlist item or two made it in fingers crossed for arranged matches or outright ranked match making

Can we save the hyperbolic flames at least until after that date has come and gone?

Step 1: completely overhaul underwater combat
Step 2: adjust shark balancing?

Agreed about the team effort to ressurect, though im not opposed to some utility existing i do think it should be on slot 3. (By utility i mean stomp defence)

Some actual utility like cripple on skill 2 could be neat. (Immobilize i find dubious)

Did jon announce too soon? Ya. So we should rage about it and demonstrate why sharing news too early can backfire, thus ensuring he will take his time to release the actual blog.

@meta: so i want to get this straight, you think the thief is more, about the same, or less mobile than other classes?

@cyric: if i understand, you prefer balancing decisions not center around what high skill players are able to do, but be based upon each persons individual opinion and abilities? Also, i have played some thief, i just wouldnt say ive played a lot of it.

Oh and yea, downed states in general just need a total overhaul

Actually… the staff is pretty good already. I see videos and hear good things about scepter dagger. Talk to godmode about scepter focus, he seems to think he has a good build for that.

I think dagger mainhand is our only weapon that needs much tweeking.

That said, if i was going to buff, i would make weapons all dd or all condition damage, no more hybrid. Not stronger tho, just more streamlined.

Then i would give more amulet options. I think more point customization would be awesome. If i could have a valkaries with vitality in place of crit multiplier i think id be borderline op with a staff.

Yea. Good message poorly put. We just wanted gw1 with new graphics and a z axis… we tried this new stuff. Its not very good.

Downed states, yea… i want to hear more detailed thoughts. I know a lot of players are very unhappy with them but i want to hear that explained (in spvp, i get it elsewhere).

I happen to like the idea, it adds some strategy because of stability and invis, push back and interuption. That said the current downed state bars are poorly balanced at best.

I admit gw2 doesnt have the stacks and filo system of gw1, but with polish and time it might, and stability will be a key boon to purge.

I know this isnt constructive but… i just wanted gw1 gvg and hoh with a z axis and new graphics… i gave and will continue to give this new game a shot, but does anyone else wonder why they reinvented the wheel into a more squarish shape?

Yea and healing causes prolongued fights with attrition. Positioning mattered for the monks a lot too. They had to know how and when to move forward in support of a warrior that dived.

So it sounds like we agree the most identifiable thing we miss from the monk is the definition of lines and positioning. Is there a way to get that back in a game where skirmishes are mostly 2v2 or 3v3 with maybe the occasional 5v5?

This thread is for complaining about major design decisions that are too late to change. It seems, and to some degree is, unconstructive. Im going to contend that by identifying the things we miss and WHY we miss them, arenanet can find ways to sate our nostalgia / frustration.

Lets start with the monk profession. This was a fun class in gw 1 pvp. I understand why we wanted to do away with healers in pve, but why did pvp have to suffer? There weren’t throngs complaining about not being able to play because the monk was missing, the monk was fun, people wanted to play it. Arenanet made the funnest healer i have ever found in an rpg and then tossed it in the trash. What i missed? Reactive game play i guess. Positioning was huge in gw 1, you cringed when you saw someone over extend. Gw2? … misses that.

Lets talk about the downed state. It makes the most sense in spvp by far. Wvwvw it just helps whomever has the most players even more, in dungeons its a replacement for the healer they took away i guess? Except people usually die by standing someplace bad. So spvp. It adds teamwork here and is sort of its own mini game, im for it (after its rebalanced) but i know a lot will disagree.

Why exactly are we trying to make this an e sport? We have a limited pvp type so as not to fragment the community… with a small team size to keep prize pools down. So there is a cost. What did we gain? Not many of us are going to go pro, so we lost the hope of being in the top bracket, those slots will go to people that dont aspire to real jobs now.

Hm, i see your point about node proximity.

I also agree that node control isnt map control, what i said was that map control is node control. :P. Nitpicked back!

Anyways, the small point can be made that with more organized play you do see teams with only one person each on point and the rest slightly back with some sides being defined. But i agree this argument is somewhat week, as those sides are highly permiable and the spreading out has more to do with aoe avoidance than the sort of tactical positioning of the past.

Still, while i agree a problem exists i think your solution is wrong and would lead to less interesting game play.

The rate of recharge was not meant to compare to other classes weapon skills. It was meant to compare to other classes teleport utility skills, which vary with low end being mesmers blink.

Oh also, the idea that its a shared resource is sort of negated by the existence of the utility slot skill thats comparable to every other class.

Again, i wanted to discuss the impact of removing object interaction in stealth and the awesomeness of infiltrator arrow serves only as context.

Nobody has yet even mentioned that thieves would still have high utility as they can stealth an ally to be stomped and save them in a way not negated by stability.

Instead im seeing people apparently try to argue thieves arent more mobile on the battlefield than other classes? Is that really in question?

Why havent i seen the team paradigm vs legacy match where paradigm wint kyhlo without a thief when legacy has one? That would be a hard match for me to explain! Instead im seeing a lot of people passionately defend the class they love and play. Im happy you found a part of the game you enjoy, can you try to be more objective in your reviews? Im very interested in constructive conversation about this. We havnt had much of that yet.

< a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4xPV5jw2VI&list=PL51BE336EE539271B&index=4&feature=plcp”>This</a> video features a number of Thief tactics, including a number of infiltrator shots not usable by other professions. You may notice some of them (while neat) are usable by others, which still brings us to:

costing 6 initiative is still by far the smallest cooldown in the game.

I feel I should remind people: This is not a thread proposing IA nerfs. It is a thread reviewing the various advantages a Thief has and deciding which of them could be taken away without making the thief then unfun to play or not viable. Arenanet tends to overdo their nerfs, I wanted to put out a mild suggestion that they might try.

No, you can still infiltrator arrow up and down ledges that you can’t shadow step (and that mesmers can’t blink, and elementalists can’t Lightning Flash. Though Necromancers can Necrotic Transversal them last I checked.)

@Krathos:

1) Yea I didn’t say nerf Infiltrator arrow, I just pointed out that it’s amongst he advantages a thief has which could be considered candidate for nerf. The shortbow is alright by the way, it also has a really handy Blast Finisher. Probably the best weapon swap option for the thief, because of how initiative works adding another set of cooldowns would be meaningless, so that altered utility is really handy.
2) The Ele comments were a reply to someone who noticed I play Ele the most and was trying to make a pass at my own class by suggesting AoE damage be nerfed. My comment was intended to illustrate that I’m really not here to cry nerf thief because my class is underpowered… I play GW2, not really a particular class.
3) The point is that there are 8 classes and 5 slots on your tPvP team. When you have 1 class that every team has to pick inorder to be competitive, well now there’s really only 4 slots. It detracts from the metagame to have a single role that is of such immense tactical significance filled so overwhelmingly best by one specifc class.
4) The Thief needs a nerf which will somehow allow teams to elect not to bring one if they so choose, without feeling that they are throwing the game by doing so. There are a number of advantage which put the Thief notably ahead. It’s class based survivability via shadow step and stealth allow it to spec very glassy and provide amazing burst. It’s unmatched mobility, and it’s incredible utility. If you accept the premise that the Thief needs some nerf (I can see many of you do not) then the question becomes what do you want the Thief to still excel at? I suggest team fight relevance is the most interesting thing for them to give up.
5) Again, the downed state comment refers to a previous posters comment regarding downed states. I do think downed states need some redesign, and in that redesign the thief will probably suffer more than most, but the goal is to roughly equalize the downed states, which are currently not balanced. Why do I say the thief downed state is so good? Because it allows you to slip a stability stomp, something your teammates often cannot do for you (except by stealthing you, a bit of utility the thief will still have). Against good players, the person stomping you will usually have stability, which makes the thief one of the more easily revived team members.

@all: Look I’m not intending to attack your sacred class, I’m aiming to discuss balancing of an individual class, primarily for tPvP. My comments come inspired more from watching matches (largely from BWE3) featuring team paradigm, legacy, synergy, GS, GuSu, etc — and post launch from listening to and watching Last Pride, War Machine, Idiot Savants.

The current metagame really shows that the Thief, along with the Guardian and Mesmer are fairly indespensable picks. I’m also not crying buff the class I play most, it’s a fairly popular 5th slot class too. If I was going to point the buff wand anywhere it would be at Necromancers or Rangers. My opinion on buffing, however, is that necklace options just need to be expanded. I think a big part of what makes Thief and Mesmer so popular is that previously discussed attribute-independant survivability. These classes have mechanics that allow them to get away with using the Beserker Amulet. Few classes work that well with their amulet, if more amulet choices existed…

But I digress, the Thief would still be a cut ahead of everyone else as things currently stand.

Oh and I don’t play Warrior, in fact that’s one class I play almost none of.

I don’t think HB Warriors are a problem at all, though I think Quickness is bad and shouldn’t be in the game.

Look in your model getting kills gives points and map control, map control = node control.

So there’s nothing in your version but a team battle in mid.

GW2 just isn’t that fun of a team battle game. Sorry. GW1 Prophecies was, back when MtG was the inspiration and it had the funnest healing system ever witnessed in a RPG.(I haven’t played all rpgs… but I’m still going to speak in absolutes here.)

Instead GW2 has the downed state. Roughly 2/3rds to 3/4ths of your skills come in pre-packaged sets so you can’t make bad decisions… so we went from MtG constructed to premade decks with premade sidebars… like the official electronic version… that very few people play, despite the fact it’s a lot cheaper.

The meta-game and team fights just don’t have enough complexity to be interesting. You need a map that will encourage meaningful tactics to add something to the game.

1) If you remove secondary objectives, it is difficult to come back if you fall behind in points. This makes the early game interesting, the mid game boring, an the late game a meaningless waste of time.

2) If you make killing players worth more points, teams will just 5 man team fight in the middle because losing players is a bigger deal. Not only does it disadvantage them because of respawns, it gives points!

3) So overall, your suggestions would penalize teams doing anything but 5 man fighting in the mid… which begs the question, why not just death match arena? (because it’s not as interesting)

1) add more customization to amulet options so some builds become viable that currently are not. Some ideas, like a power major, toughness minor, and healing minor; are small variations. Others like condition major, toughness and vitality minor are probably also going to open up new options. Some like toughness vitality and healing would be stupid and shouldnt exist.

2) elementalist should have condition weapons and non condition weapons. This would make going 30 arcana more of an option than a must.

3) guardian passive state nerf to be on par with elementalist. Im going to say this about every other class… im on a phone. So ill just say it here.

4) mesmer illusion nerf across the board by some small %.

5) ranger make pet abilities instant, long bow and great sword need flat % buffs.

6) thief no more stealth stomps

7) warrior no change

8) necromancer make pet active skills more tactically significant.

9) engineer no changes

tilts head infiltrator arrow allows free movement along the z axis, most teleports dont allow this, so it is the best. It grants the most mobility.

Elementalist aoe probably should be nerfed in pve, but im not very experienced with pve so im not going to get behind that.

The thief really is a staple of serious competative teams. Having different classes ideal for different roles is sometimes fine, but the role the thief excels at is too useful not to have in a team of 5.

I really dont mean to flame here, but the thief does need a nerf and im proposing a very soft one, because i dont wish to see it over nerfed.

Also the vs stability stomps is a valid conversation, but i think most people will agree they would rather play with stability stomps.

Blind stomps are not good at all. Im not sure why you think thats an issue.

The thief downed state is pretty solid, probably 2nd best in game. That needs changing too but only because downed states in general need fixing.

Well… the thief is op. Not horrible own your face over powered, but it is the best roaming and killing class in the game.

Why? Well shadow step is good. Infiltrator arrow is the best teleport in the game, and that signet is pretty handy. All of this on the best utility in the game (stealth stomps and rezes). Makes the thief… too good at what it does.

No truly competitive team of 5 would que without one.

So… it needs a nerf. I suggest this one. It keeps the class viable and we will still see it used alot as a roamer, but with this change a team could consider leaving the thief out if they wanted.

Thats my suggestion to fic thief. No more stealth stomps or rezes or any number of pve exploits with smoke fields.

Stealth will be a tool for juking enemy attacks and increasing survivability.

Keep shadow step, its incredibly good not broken.

Keep infiltrator arrow.

Consider nerf to passive speed, but do this only after much play testing with the first change.

The patch did concern 8v8 as arranged tournaments arent in yet. I and 15 friend pick an empty server from the browser, join, and trade. (Thats an example not a testimony)

Anet is concerned with 5v5, you just need to be patient. They dont think its working right, but they are busy and know that more time will give a more mature view of what changes should be made.

Wildclaw.6073:

ryston.7640:

Perhaps the most crippling but is the compunded attunement recharge rate (40% of 15 is not 9.). Why do people never comment on this?

9.375s is however 60% faster recharge rate than 15s. (100% faster would be 7.5s)

blinks wow, explain it that way and I feel like an idiot. I’ve really been ranting and raving about this bug for a while now.

Talking about team score…
Also respawn waves are… weird.

Look anet isnt going to give us a different map type, it would’fragment the community’. They want a mmo esport. I dont agree with this decision but thats the kind of thing you dont change this late in development.

Its 3 point cap n hold, wich can be sort of interesting.

Except we get points for kills, and the respawn wave is cruel, so getting kills is hugely advantageous, so the game is really king of the hill in mid. Winner wins, loser tries to pull off cute tactics to make a come back but probably loses anyways.

Taking away score gains for kills would make that accusation less true.

Now somebody is going to argue my assesment is wrong. Theyre going to say the keep lord is worth 20% of the score or something.

Thats a good way to try and salvage a game where you already lost mid, and probably the game.

Eles need a good and thorough debugging before we can really assess their strength. Perhaps the most crippling but is the compunded attunement recharge rate (40% of 15 is not 9.). Why do people never comment on this?

Their downed state is pretty deplorable.

I agree with everything said here except the suggested change to capricorn.

1) the sharks may need changing, but having the capture point underwater is, i think, fine. Underwater combat just needs a complete overhaul period, in all spheres of play but pvp perhaps most of all.
2) a whine that touches on class balancing, the amulets. Some classes have quality traits in lines that let them synergise well with a particular amulet. Other classes may have good traits and builds that dont happen to match an amulet. If players were allowed greater freedom to allocate equipment bonuses… (copy paste argument made by arena net for adding tiers to the trait system). It creates more viable builds and a more complex metagame.

So if you down an ele, ranger, necro… and immediately go to stomp, theyll die.

Do this to those other classes, and to varying degrees you will fail.

The warrior one is really pretty mild, but its still a cut above what i guess passes for norm.

Now this could go a number of ways, you could say… so buff those other downed states! You could say its a valid part of class balancing, or, like me, you could say that downed states add support gameplay to a game with no dedicated support class – making some classes largely self sufficient here just takes that back away. Powerful downed states are anti teamwork

Really looking forward to it! Might i suggest bug fixing and doing away with the amulet system before major balancing changes to individual classes? Simply having better stat allocation could make builds currently impractical viable. I think the mesmer/thief/guardian work so well as a team backbone in large part because these 3 classes gain their survivability or damage somewhat inspite of their stats, and can concequently use necks more efficiently (beserker).

Jon once posted that he considers necros to be one of the hardest classes to l2p and is waiting for the community to master death shroud before making balancing decisions. Also, there are other classes who have yet to receive any attention, whine less

It was mentioned on page 1 already but i have, i think, more details:

The arcana trait line reduces attunement recgarge by 2% per point in an iterative, rather than cumulative manner.

So 98% of 15 is x, the 98% of x is y, and so on for each point youve increased arcana. At 30 points this results in a recharge rate just over 9 seconds, as opposed to the 6 second recharge rate a cumulative approach would yield. The tooltip leads one to think the reduction would be cumulative.

So, this thread was not intended as an elementalist balancing discussion, but i want to digress:

1) attunement recharge starts at 15 seconds, with 30 points invested into arcana it is reduced 60% to a little over 9 seconds. Check that math… thats right, the 15 seconds is reduced by 2%, then that product is reduced again by 2% and so on a total of 30 times. This is the attunement bug i refer to. I honestly think a 6 second cd might be op.

2) the class mechanic on ele is attunement swapping. This also stands in for our weapon swap, and has a 15 second starting cooldown. If 1 of our attunements is a heal, and another does the wrong damage type, then there are really only 2 attunements we can sit in per build.

So our class mechanic boils down to the utility skills in water and our non damage element. Hey thats not a bad deal those are some useful buttons. But we have to land back on a good attunement after we switch to a utuility one, and that means we can only swing by every 15 seconds.

Since our 1 attacks arent that great were pretty obliged to go 30 arcana…

If on the other hand we could sit in any one of 3 attunements and dip water for the heals, then going deep arcane is optional again, like the class mechanic is for everyone else. Still often a good idea, but not so obligatory.

Now when i say sit i mean for 9 to 15 seconds, just to be clear.

0/10. You punished players for being good at the game. You have people complaining about a lack of end game for a reason, there isn’t a lot of it — you just removed some. Good job?

Morkai.7645:

Read my responses. This is not about skill this is about balance.

I would contend that games sould be balanced first and formost for the most skilled tier of play, and that only small concessions should be made for the lower tiers of play inorder to create a more gradual slope in the learning curve.

Attempting to balance for all tiers simotaneously is… a much more difficult task, one I do not think a game with 8 classes is likely to succede at.

If I take your words differently, you could be suggesting that all classes be equally difficult to learn to play. I guess I don’t have an opinion about this. I am not bothered by the thought the Thief class migh have a shallow depth of skill. I suppose I can see how you would be, but I myself don’t care.

-1

I think underwater combat is boring and bad on most classes, but the map it’s self isn’t (in my opinion) poorly designed.

Warriors are right about where they should be, as you gain skill as a player the 100 blades builds will become easier to deal with. (they’re still scary lethal, especially if you’re already distracted by another player! But you’ll learn to cope.)

Thief, Mesmer, and Guardian are all a little ahead of the pack. I currently think that this happens in large part because of the Amulet selection options. Thief and Mesmer have illusions/stealth/shadowstep options that allow them to have relatively high survivability while taking Beserkers amulet.

Other classes need to look to their amulets for survivability options, and wind up with a compromised damage source and feel week. The exception is the Guardian, who just does better than any other class at staying alive and providing support to allies, giving them the option of playing alternative roles or – like the mesmers and theives – grabbing a Beserkers Amulet and going to town.

If they would open up the customization options a little more and give us spectator mode I think we would find new ways to use the existing classes and more insight into the balancing issues that persist.

I’m really curious to hear which weapons and attunements you favor, if any.

I myself am playing Elementalist and feel like I’ve hit a bump. I haven’t done much with mainhand dagger, but here’s where I’m at:

1) My heavy damage builds do pleanty of damage, but I am too easy to kill, making this build little fun. The enemy either pays attention to me early in the fight or loses.

2) My survival/support builds are tough, but Guardians do it better and can bring real hurt to the enemy — my survival builds do little else.

3) My control builds are cute, but the best ‘utility’ in the game is a thief who can stealth + stomp, or stealth themselves and their ally to rez. I can’t actually say I like the Elementalist as a controller.

So I’m at that slump you were at. I fear all 1v1s.

I think it would benefit from a ground up overall. Because of the increased movement and lack of AoE fields the current depth of engagement feels shallow and hit-for-hit-ish. (almost like a more traditional MMOs ground combat).

I really think that before a major under-water themed content patch comes out, the Development team needs to play a ton of space or naval themed games to find which elements of this can be made FUN, and incorporate them into the weapon sets provided.

I’m sorry I don’t have any good suggestions in this post, I’ve tried figuring out how to make it more fun and came up blank — making it entirely understandable how things wound up in their current state. But under water combat feels about as well polished as downed states.

Some of these are suggestions, some of them are just problem identification.

1) Observer mode so we can have more informed discussions about balancing specific classes.

2) Downed States on Thief, Mesmer, Warrior, and Guardian need to be nerfed.

3) Thief, Mesmer, and Guardian have a significant advantage over all other classes. No other class fills a role these three don’t already do better / none of the roles filled are more important than simply having an extra one of these 3 classes.

4) The majority of Ranger pet abilities need to be instant, or closer to. The animations for pets right now are poor.

5) Elementalists have a few bugs I’ve written about in other threads, additionally I suggest weapons be either damage or condition damage themed, rather than having this change with attunements.

6) The amulet/jewel simpilization has significantly reduced the complexity and variety of build options for each class. I appreciate the simplicity it has brought to the ragdoll UI, but it has come at too high a cost.

NOTE: If you fix 1, 2, and 6… you could probably wait a month or two and see where things go before fixing the others. I think part of what put Mesmer/Thief/Guardian so far ahead of the pack is the fact that they work well with existing amulet options and have extremly powerful downed states.

+ x% Protection Duration (such as given by Runes of Earth or Runes of the Grove) are not computed for Glyph of Elemental Harmony or Armor of Earth

+ x% Boon Duration is computed.
+ x% Protection Duration is computed for other sources of protection such as * the Elemental Attunement Trait, and the Inscriptions Trait.

*Origionally I thought Armor of Earth calculated correctly. It does not.

It appears that the % reduction in attunement recharge is compounded 30 times, once for each point put into the Arcana line. This results in an ~ 9 second cooldown on attunements with 30 points, as opposed to the 6 second cool down one would initially expect when reading the description.