Guild Wars 2

The problem is creating weaker effects for blind and slow is easier said than done. They are most likely still going to be broken no matter what you do. With other soft CC its more obvious. Because they arent even broken in the first place.

But heres the thing. They can make blind and slow work on vets etc. Then they still have value. You just cant use the most broken condis on proper bosses.

https://youtu.be/AmkVfz9pvS8

xadine.7069:

I have a naive question:
Why a lot of players aren’t ok with blind and slow 100% efficient and are ok with aegis and superspeed being 100% efficient?
Please don’t troll me it is a real question, and I’m aware it would require some necessary limitations to make it viable. If you just want to answer but not on this thread for “reasons” don’t hesitate to PM. The difference of attitude toward buff and debuff has always been weird in this game and is the reason why we have the GWEM meta imo.

why I ask and ideas

hide spoiler

Before you start to kill me I’ll explain why I have to ask.

• Blind / Aegis*
  Blind make the target miss the next attack. Aegis make the target block the next attack. You can stack blind, and it’s not that hard to provide tons of Aegis.
  From where I stand, the final effect is exactly the same, the next attack will be as hurtful as a fart…
  In the current stat Aegis is 100% efficient and blind 10% efficient, therefore a Guard is more usefull than a Necro because he “can’t” miss. And everyone seems fine with that.
  I agree it is way easier to stack blind, and I’m not saying you should be able to apply 25 stack of blind to a boss. But why is it normal to totally destroy bling in PvE? Why not use it with something like “only 1 stack of blind can be apply to the boss every XXs” or “1 blind / spell only affect the boss” so the effect isn’t worthless.

• Slow / superspeed *
  Same issue here (well not exactly but close^^)
  Ofc condi such as slow (even chill imo) can be very strong against a boss, it is obvious. and yet I don’t understand why players are ok with the idea “kitten this part of the game act like it doesn’t exist”. It would be nice to actualy use them on a fight, just add a rule like “if XXs of slow affect the boss it cannot be slow for XXs” or something like that.
  And in another hand it is ok for players to be superfast and therefore able to kite the boss so he doesn’t touch you, or it is not ok to slow its CD but it is ok to shorten yours. What kind of logic is that?

Sorry for “egide” (my game isn’t in english and my native language just seems more attractive sometime ^^)
Post edited.

Its really simple.

For aegis versus blind. There is way more blind access in the game than aegis. So it would be broken for it to work fully. But if you reduced blind access to the same level as aegis it would be too weak. Because aegis simply works for you for the next attack. Whereas blind has to be on the correct target. Meaning we have to have more access to it. But then it becomes too strong on single targets. Basically blind is good for groups and aegis is good for single targets. And conversely aegis is bad for groups.

For slow versus superspeed. Superspeed is unrelated to slow. Its a movement speed boon and not overpowered in the slightest. If you mean quickness which is the correct comparison then i can also give a good reason.

Simply think of it this way. Whats easier to play? Playing in slow motion or playing with double the amount of actions per second? Clearly its slow motion. Because you have way more time to react to everything. Whereas just being able to do things faster doesnt improve your reaction speeds or make the boss any less threatening.

Slow completely breaks bosses. It makes long animation abilities take so long than you can do some pretty broken things. Quickness doesnt do this. It only helps you burst a little better.

https://youtu.be/eCYXcr8zORY
Perfect example of why slow is potentially completely broken on some bosses.

Wtf is egide?

Thing is that poor implementation of blind was exactly why making it destroy breakbars is such a good change. Blind should have always been 5% to apply but 100% to work. Not 100% to apply but 10% to work . Because you dont actually know if its going to work. Which means you have to dodge/block anyway. Which means the blind was pointless.

But with the blind abundance in game, even with 5% apply chance, we can just spam pulsing blinds to get a guaranteed proc. Which is why making it destroy breakbars is probably the best option for that particular condition. Its far too abundant in the game for anything else.

Other soft cc conditions are a completely different situation though.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Quarktastic.1027:

I find it difficult to take you seriously after reading this.

Did you forget the part where we’re discussing this as if we’re in a world where blind is 100% effective against bosses? Allowing conditions their full effects against bosses is kind of the key discussion that was being had in this thread, and blind at 100% effectiveness would be absolute insanity.

I dont think anyone suggested blind working. I got the impression everyone was talking about all other conditions (excluding blind). I certainly always commented saying blind and slow should be the exceptions. Im pretty sure everyone else just assumed blind would remain a breakbar destroyer because its never worked on bosses.

Lifeforce management is a non issue in groups where you dont need to use it for defence. So that no longer becomes a factor. So it does come down to damage. Very unlikely that we will be relied on to use spinal shivers when its such a bad skill and boon removal can be done elsewhere.

However in solos its different. Because you need to swap for energy sigil procs.

Quarktastic.1027:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Aegis is vastly inferior to blind on bosses because blind can be so easily applied.

I find it difficult to take you seriously after reading this.

He obviously means if blinds actually worked on bosses without major RNG. Which is exactly why they were given RNG.

The decision to make blinds effect the breakbar is really good. Their decision to do it with all soft CC is really bad. This all or nothing approach is really disappointing.

Yeah gravedigger cooldown + nightfall makes it pretty likely that greatsword could pull ahead. The question is whether camping either set or swapping between them is best.

RS auto does need to be weaker than dagger simply because it can be traited to generate might and vuln. And its in a damage soaking form. So i think its fine as it is. A small buff would be really nice. Although im generally in favour of reapers onslaught recieving the buff and life force generation on rs auto increasing. Would rather those than flat damage buffs.

But the other RS skills can definitely recieve some damage buffs. And they do need them. In particular RS 5 needs to compare properly to gravedigger. And RS 4 needs to actually do damage worth the channel time.

GS might be better even above 50%. Would have to do coeff calcs for gs rotations without gravedigger spam to confirm though.

Also RS auto does 0.98 coeff per second untraited and 1.13 coeff per second when traited with reapers onslaught. This might change with the aftercast reduction that has been announced. But its likely it will stay slightly lower than dagger.

Its anyones guess. Id assume its just faster. Which sucks for the projectile defence.

#PvPbalancedecisions

All that creativity and power creep but only for PvP. Surely PvP is the one gametype you want to avoid power creep as much as possible. Clearly slow was made with PvP only in mind. Or they changed their decision on breakbars late. So i really hope they revert because it makes no sense to neuter your own design of new mechanics with another new mechanic.

Vox Hollow.2736:

….
Look, it’s not like I don’t get it.
Reducing mechanics to generic “points” isn’t the best feeling. But, letting handfuls of skills rot on the vine or degrade into being one-dimensional wasn’t exactly the best feeling either. I think it’s important to get more skills into play across as many encounters and for as many levels of player expertise as possible, and if original intent has to be reconsidered – then so be it. That doesn’t mean I don’t think there’s room for growth, just that this solution is a pragmatic contemplated net positive.

Except this change is doing the opposite. The skills that provide these soft CC effects are now going to be even less useful. More skills are going to “rot on the vine” with this change. The current system at least has the potential to make them effective and popular. It was just encounter design that held it back.

And you can see clear evidence of this in game currently. In 5 man groups for fractals you rarely need such debuffs. However when you start to solo/duo/trio they become increasingly useful/important. Which just goes to show that they were perfectly fine functionally. Its just the encounters were tuned incorrectly to 5 man groups.

This change makes no sense because they seem to be addressing encounter design to encourage the use of underused mechanics such as soft CC. And then they effectively make soft CC redundant right after. Where is the logic in that?

You would be surprised. Cripple is capped passively very easily. Chill not so much but its easy to get large portions of it for frequent bursts thanks to icebow. Immob has to be invested in. And blind we dont really know because of how it works on current bosses. But its fairly accessible even on meta builds. And hard CC’s are very accessible on meta builds.

So even if soft CC on its own doesnt become like vulnerability. It will still be rather pointless because we already have way too much hard CC available to us. In fact we have more access to hard CC in the current meta than we do vulnerability. So this further emphasises the pointlessness of soft CC affecting breakbars.

Yeah and i completely agree with you on all terms apart from chill. And sort of on weakness. If bosses hit hard enough and are designed with cleanses then even 100% weakness wont save you. If chill worked to just increase cooldowns (works like this on lupi) then it wouldnt be even remotely broken as long as chill uptime is harder to maintain (boss cleanses again). Its no more broken than alacrity and quickness. Slow is the only completely broken outlier in the selection of alacrity, quickness, chill and slow. Chill is clearly the weakest of the 4. Which is why it makes so little sense to me.

But the big clincher is that it isnt just bosses. And having vets and trash mobs being immune to these conditions just because of boss balance doesnt make sense. Which is why they need to either scrap this idea completely or create tiered breakbars for different tiers of enemies.

I wouldnt be this up and arms about it if it was only bosses. But its going to be over 50% of enemies. I just severely dislike the idea of a game where all debuff conditions all do the same completely unneeded thing. Like i said i can accept it on slow and blind and even immob. But not on weakness, chill and cripple. Those are weak effects.

Weakness wont stop a high damage hit from destroying you. It will only help on the lower hits. So depending on the boss and the type of attacks being used. Its balanced. Chill isnt exactly overpowered. Cooldown increase is a really good tool that should be encouraged (it is essential for some necro solos). Wouldnt it be nice if it was highly desirable for defensive reasons even in groups? This raises a question though. Whats going to happen with Power Block on mesmer?

And movement impairment can be overpowered i admit. But there are plenty of ways to balance them without completely destroying the purpose of the conditions. Tone down the movement speed debuff on bosses for example.

PS. The whole of rT whatsapp was in complete bafflement about this. Noone on a high level likes these changes and this is coming from players that dont need these debuffs to beat content (kite and recover etc). It only hurts player choice. Which is something i thought anet wanted to give us more of. So it doesnt make sense anyway i look at it.

This has nothing to do with Reaper or Necro. This is about several conditions becoming copies of each other. Providing the exact same purpose and losing their designed effect. Its removing a layer of complexity in the game in the favour of easy boss balance and even easier defiance bar destruction.

Non thiefs can already easily deal with break bars with hard CC. Its not something thats unique to thieves. Yes thieves have an advantage with spammable CC. But its not necessary in a group. Soft CC on breakbars is not going to suddenly make soft CC desirable for that role. Its going to be a pointless addition we dont need. While at the same time removing something we may need or want (weakness damage reduction, chill skill recharge increase, cripple/chill movement impairment).

Bosses werent immune to weakness, they had reduced duration on it. But it was incredibly powerful for damage reduction when coupled with protection. Even without it was potentially very good. It just has an RNG component which meant it wasnt 100% reliable like protection is.

And if you want to get into a competition about who is worse at surviving boss encounters you made a big mistake trying to imply thief has it hard compared to Necro. Yes thief with spammable evades, vigor, projectile defence etc, they must have a really hard time… (i probably play thief in PvE more than necro btw). Compared to necro that has to rely on chill and energy sigils to just about scrape enough active defence to not die without being carried by aegis spam.

Nah he just has a special armour buff which reduces CC duration by 100% (creating immunity). But if you always interrupt that he can be perma CC’d. Its not specific conditions need to be met. Its just preventing him from using his one buff ability (has a pretty big tell).

Slowmelt.8547:

Lendruil.9061:

This is bad news, because it’s a pretty huge nerf to classes like engineer or necromancer. And it makes a full set of conditions more or less useless.
Making some of the new raid-bosses immune to soft-cc and implementing some fractal-instabilities that make those conditions weaker would be a cool variation, but just removing the effect of those soft-ccs completely is a big step into the wrong direction.

You didn’t read it at all, did you?
Soft CC with be a Damage Over Time effect for the Break Bar because it is easier to apply as a rule and can melt entire bars in seconds.

And how is that useful with all the abundant hard CC in the game? All this is is a bandaid to allow trait procs to continue working after they decided to make everyting affect the breakbar. It doesnt change the fact that its just rendered all debuff conditions completely useless. It would have been better to have ignored those early suggestions (i assumed it was obvious they were bad ideas and the devs wouldnt implement them) and kept cripple, chill etc separate from breakbars.

And its not even limited to bosses. Veterans and trash mobs are getting breakbars. So where does this leave soft CC?

I suggested another solution in the necro forums if the devs are adamant on making it easy to balance bosses by using this. Make tiered breakbars so veterans, elites, trash mobs and less bosses have different breakbars. Certain tiers would allow certain soft cc’s to work fully without affecting the breakbar. And so on.

Nyth.3492:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Bosses are far easier to balance and far easier to make diverse and challenging when you don’t have to balance them under the presumption that they’ll be suffering 100% chill and weakness (which good organized groups would obviously take advantage of).

I want to quote this, because I don’t think this people realize the importance of this.

…snip…

Problem is that its not just raid bosses. Its all veterans and many regular trash mobs. And some even have inactive breakbars for 90% of the time. Which means they are completely immune for 90% of the fight.

The game is not so complex that they cant account for 6 debuff conditions when balancing bosses…. In reality it would only be 3/4 because blind and slow are obviously too strong on bosses. But those 2 conditions need to work on vets and trash mobs otherwise they are useless as conditions.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Really, I understand where people like spoj and drarnor are coming from, but I don’t think they realize what an impact things like chill or weakness would have on bosses. Bosses are far easier to balance and far easier to make diverse and challenging when you don’t have to balance them under the presumption that they’ll be suffering 100% chill and weakness (which good organized groups would obviously take advantage of).

Its not that simple though. Bosses in the base game can already be affected by most of those conditions and it isnt broken. The only one that is broken for is slow (so give it the blind treatment).

Another major problem with this is it creates a huge purity of purpose overlap. Essentially 6 completely different conditions will be doing the exact same thing. I honestly cant understand how anyone can accept that kind of overlap as ok.

If certain bosses require immunity to certain debuff conditions to prevent trivialising content then you can just use the same methods as the old content does (100% X condition duration reduction). Or better yet just create a weakened state for these conditions on breakbar mobs. Or even have tiered breakbars. So bosses get this current breakbar but veterans, lesser bosses and trash mobs get a simple one which is only affected by hard CC and blind.

Also since breakbars are now going to pretty much every veteran and a ton of regular mobs this isnt just going to effect big bosses. Its going to destroy the use of soft cc on probably over 50% of HoT enemies. Those big hammer vets have an inactive breakbar until they charge the slam. So until they start that attack they are completely immune to all soft CC. And maybe you dont want to just break the bar and get a predetermined stun. Maybe you want to kite until he starts his slam then use hard CC to break the bar. Its taking away huge parts of the game all for the sake of easy balance.

This single poor design decision could seriously prevent me from enjoying the game. Thats how serious it is to me.

Sigmoid.7082:

Changes to chilling force mean you can take str runes and str/battle sigils and still maintain a lot of might without the spite line. So this opens up a few more build options. All these changes are perfect!

Id like to see how you manage that with breakbars making everything immune to chill, cripple etc.

It really just comes down to pugs blindly following the meta without really fully understanding it. Any set of average players can complete the content faster than tryhard pugs if they use classes they are comfortable with and have cohesive strategies.

Raids will be new content. There wont be record compositions to copy right off the bat. So in theory you shouldnt run into any class exclusion straight away.

You do realise you dont have to adhere to the most efficient composition. Thats something that is only done by guilds trying to set a record or tryhard pugs.

Just be patient. Jebus…

Oh yeah thats annoying how it doesnt auto re-engage with auto’s. Noticed that as well.

Also leaving shroud really needs to not interrupt any skills. Its really annoying starting the cast of executioner scythe or deaths charge only to run out of lifeforce and get rupted. Not sure why it was ever added. There wasnt really anything broken about DS skills carrying over outside of shroud was there?

Im assuming this is a joke post.

mordran.4750:

spoj.9672:

Its a placebo. People dont really need it but they believe they do… because reasons.

lol, look at that, a PvE hero…….. Well you know there are more game modes available where different weapons have there uses. maybe you should read a few of the posts here explaining that. omg these kids today…………..

Just because im known to play and primarily focus on PvE doesnt mean i dont play or understand PvP. I admit i dont really touch it much anymore because its boring to me. But there were times when i played it seriously in a team environment (all “PvE heroes” yet we didnt have a problem rising ranks very quickly).

Reading much of the justification in this thread only proves my original point. Most of it is very weak justification. So it makes you wonder what the real reason is. Its not because staff is good. Its because we dont have a whole lot of choice of good weapons. Ive had far better success with double offhands or simply never switching away from dagger/warhorn. Which really says a lot about the state of staff. If it screws you over by switching to it and getting stuck on it for too long. Then theres clearly an issue.

ps. Since the game is clearly balanced around PvP. Its quite important that i have an understanding of PvP so i can relay PvE balance suggestions which also keep PvP in mind. I like how being associated as a top end PvE player makes me automatically clueless about other gamestypes.

Dreaming serpent.5197:

If your familiar with enigner, staff is basicly an upgraded version of grenade kit.

Whaaaaaaat.

I have to admit the justification for using staff in this thread is starting to get quite amusing.

gavyne.6847:

spoj is our resident PvE necro master, understandably he sees staff as a weak weapon. Just wanting to note that the OP is talking PvP specifically.

I was talking about PvP though. In PvE people REALLY dont need it and they dont use it. Completely different situation.

Its a placebo. People dont really need it but they believe they do… because reasons.

What so we can have another duplicate trait/skill? Signet of the locust, speed of shadows and quickening thirst.

We actually need the opposite. We need the duplicates replaced with meaningful traits. And just have one source for 25% movement speed.

The thing is, if they are worried about players messing with animations and skill cooldowns and therefore breaking phases then they shouldnt have created the condition slow. So theres really no excuse to this change. :P

And the idea of turning half the conditions into PvP/trash mob only is really boring and disappointing to me. Because it looks like that is whats happening.

The pvp one was only funny because it was original and the PvP community is easily amused. Appreciate the tribute though. It was mildy amusing.

Personally i dont think soft CC should affect break bars at all. Chill, cripple, weakness and maybe immob should work as normal. Blind would be the only soft CC that should effect break bars simply because its too powerful to allow to work on bosses.

ZDragon.3046:

Chill helps degrade the break bar more than normal stuns and dazes. Chill application counts as a crowd control and so does cripple and blind. These are soft crowd controls but can be applied much quicky and more easily than hard cc’s FEAR, STUN, KOCKBACK

Stop whining about change everyone will be happy when you drop an ice field and spin on it breaking bars faster than any other profession can.

This is tested on player breakbars and its the only easy quick way I found to break the revy break bar before they could even finish healing. Besides the goal will be to break bars anyways the way boss fights happen are going to change its not going to be all about doing damage.

Breakbars arent the only thing chill revolves around. We have several traits that depend on chill being actually on the target to be effective. That cant happen if the condition just becomes a defiant bar breaker. I really dont want to see chill become only useful for trash mobs like blind is currently. Its a good condition on bosses when it applies and effects their movement speed and skill cooldowns. The content just isnt hard enough for people to consider it much. That should change with better encounter design. Theres no need to slap on immunity. Because by making it a defiant breaker it is essentially making bosses immune to chill.

ps. As a necro solo’er im fully aware of how valuable chill is to surviving difficult boss solos’s.

Nemesis.8593:

Why are you people saying average DPS ?… Nemesis said average DPS for 3 years straight… but the “self proclaimed pro” kept saying no no no… Nemesis is stupid… no AVERAGE DPS… MAX DPS… LOOK MATH !…

Except the numbers weve been comparing have always been average sustained dps. If we had included Icebow burst in those comparisons ele would be quoted as 60k dps instead of 15-18k (which is just staff by the way). And necro would have been quoted as higher dps. But we dont. We compare sustained dps. Usually over 30 second periods or repeatable rotations. Even though in reality burst is more important currently. Ironically the sustained dps comparisons has lead us to pick the best comps for bursting as well.

Plus what i find hilarious is that warriors burst dps is exactly the same as their sustain dps. Its the one class that is almost completely constant regardless of encounter length. And then you compare it to necro burst and make claims as if the warrior was bursting and had the advantage. The numbers were severely skewed in the necros favour and they still lost to a phalanx build. Just proves that what we have been saying since the beginning was right all along.

Besides im sure weve told you this countless times before but the meta isnt about dps. 2 eles and a warrior is enough to completely cover dps. The main time saves come from utility and tactics. Which is why necro is excluded. Because they take a slot, dont buff like warrior and dont do as much sustained or burst damage as ele. And they certainly dont have utility like mesmer/thief/guard/engi. So really what are you trying to prove? Your reasons for why you get kicked from groups is completely false. Its nothing to do with damage.

And yes icebow is broken. But thats just beating a dead horse with a stick. Noone disagrees with that. And its almost always excluded from dps comparisons for obvious reasons. No idea what you were trying to achieve in this video other than spreading misinformation and riling up your blind followers.

Lorechill.7412:

Decimate Defenses is working ? never seen it yet, does not matter if dummies in PVP or Fort Panic

It doesnt display on hero panel because its per enemy.

Element Two.7316:

Only clowns use Harpy Feathers in 3+ man runs, even if there are no classes to stealth you

What if you want to roleplay as colesy?

x)

Yeah except its not practical in a lot of situations. Especially in pugs. And organised groups dont do it because its basically frowned upon and was banned from records.

Oh yeah im still not too happy about locked weapon strength to exotic two hander (If you are going to lock it, lock it as ascended an two hander and do it for both RS and DS) and the 1 second cooldown on RS entry. However i do really like that it procs weapon swap sigils on entry and exit.

Im fully aware its not optimised. Did i not say that in the description? Also yes i realised my mistake of not using Bitter Chill.

I made a lot of changes as the attempts went by because things werent working (started fully offensive with soul reaping, focus, lich and shout heal). Wasnt sure about VP over banshees. When i do it next time ill probably be using focus and soul reaping anyway.

Although watching the footage. Had no idea the chilling bolts were not really stacking any additional chill most of the time. Guess ill have to go for lifesteal bolts instead or work on the timing. With that field duration its awkward because you can so easily miss your chance if you have to dodge.

Oh no i just meant the current life force should be boosted from 1.5% to 3%. Its only on the final hit after all.

Chilling Victory will never compete with decimate if it keeps the ICD. Even with 10 second duration its going to be lackluster on single targets. Increasing the might duration would definitely help. But to make it worth while on single targets it would have to be about 15 seconds which is getting into broken territory when dealing with multiple enemies. Honestly forceful greatsword on the warrior has perfect balance for this (no ICD but 5 second duration). Dont see why we cant have that. We might be able to proc it a bit more easily which could make it too strong. If thats the case just reduce it to 4 second duration.

Im of the opinion that if all the aftercasts and unresponsive activation bugs are fixed then it would feel a lot faster. Wouldnt you enjoy it more if thats the case?

I get that a really slow auto attack is annoying. But as long as it hits hard enough to compensate the self interruption and attack speed its perfectly acceptible. And it is pretty much in that place right now numbers wise at least. Maybe a little more damage would help cement that position. Its coeff per second is 1.2 compared to daggers 1.33. So thats pretty good if you dont interrupt yourself all the time.

Oh yeah for minors. I like the idea of merging the current master and grandmaster minors. And then having the grandmaster minor provide 5-10% damage to chilled foes as a bonus would be awesome.

However i dont agree with Death’s Charge. If you shorten the cast time of that skill it becomes much less useful as a projectile block. I would like it to stay exactly as it is (minus the bug where it charges in random directions).