I would like to see other professions AoE stability effects made playable in wvw to promote build diversity.
Guardian has de facto a monopoly on AoE stability abilities in wvw. That monopoly comes from shout “Stand Your Ground” and trait “Indomitable_Courage”. Stability is the single most important boon in wvw group fights and any attempt to engage on a group of over 20 players without having stability is doomed to fail.
Here are guardian’s sources of AoE stability:
They are both great and meta defining skills. They give long enough stability and have good range (600 and 1200) so your allies get their stabi even if you aren’t standing exactly on top of them. They are both instant abilities (unless you are a dragon hunter), which makes using them much more convenient than other profession’s alternatives. Shout has a low cooldown and the trait has few ways to play around it’s long cooldowns. (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Courageous_Return and http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Renewed_Focus)
Other professions have some access to AoE stability for example:
These other professions do have some access to AoE stability, but it seems to pale in comparison with Guardian’s.
Well of Precognition and Inspiring Reinforcement only give stability if you stay inside the skill’s effect, in dynamic wvw fights that is often not good enough. In theory you would be able to drop these skills on your opponent and fight there, but the enemy usually moves away and these skills end up doing nothing.
Toss Elixir B and Mantra of Concentration seem to promise a good stability uptime. For example Elixir B when traited has only 16,25 seconds cooldown and the stability would last at least 5,75s unless removed. Mantra lets you drop the stability in small doses of 3 stacks for 2 seconds and recharge the skill when you are regrouping for example. But in practice these skills fail short too. Toss Elixir B takes time to cast and its radius is only 180. Power break has kinda long cooldown after you have used the charges and the area is small 240 radius too.
What I would like to see is these skills made a bit better so the Guardians wouldn’t be the only profession who gets to give stability to allies. I wouldn’t mind if the guardian would still remain the “Best” stability bringer, but in my opinion boosting the stability application for other professions would allow players to try out different group compositions and builds.
What kind of changes I am talking about? For example:
- Toss Elixir B radius increased to 600.
- Power Break radius increased to 600, cooldown reduced to 20 seconds.
- Inspiring Reinforcement stability time increased from 1 to 2 seconds.
- Well of Precognition stability time increased from 1 to 2 seconds.
These changes wouldn’t make the skills better than guardian’s AoE stability skills, but I believe they would make the skills more viable and we would see more mesmers and engineers in wvw group builds.
If you like my idea please show your support! If you think my idea is ~ok but could use some tweaking don’t hesitate to post your suggestion into the mix. If you think my idea is horrible tell that too! But please try to be gentle and don’t crush my hopes and dreams too violently.
