Class Balance 101: Traits: Bonus to Damage

Some traits give players bonus to damage when they have HIGH health.Some traits give players bonus damage to players who are below X% health.

I believe that this is bad design. It should be the other way around.Bonuses to damage should be when the player has LOW health,Bonus to damage should be when the opponent has HIGH health.

If it were the way I suggest, then;

• Fights would be drawn out and player who look like they might die have a better chance to come back when their health is low, leading to DRAMA, turnarounds and better, more interesting fights.
• Instead we have spike damage aficionados who just know a few combinations to obliterate people, which is interesting for them, but BORING for the huge number of potential competitive mode participants who avoid these game modes because of such spike.

I think these traits are the illogical way around because US culture seems to insist on empowering winners. Donald Trump, for example, continually used the terms "Winner" and "Loser" in his campaign.

Your idea aside, as I dont care what way rounf it is, I think this has nothing to do with politics or culture. It's more about hunting: If an arrow sticks in someone, he is weakened, loses blood, gets less concentrated and therefore his defense goes down. Also, if you keep hitting what is already hurt, the enemy will go down due to his weakness. Thats just biology basically, not american culture. Oh and Im european, Im not involved :-)

I think it's more to do with the fact you essentially incentivise players staying at low health. How does this work in team fights? Players would essentially be "punished" for healing you, as you'd lose your damage buff. This is why Revenant Malyx spec was gutted, because it got stronger the more conditions you had on you. But a large part of team play is removing conditions frm players, and as skills are AoE and not player targetable, you can't control who you remove conditions from.

So while you are correct that in a 1V1 situation it would be more interesting, as soon as you involved any other players you're making it harder for them to work together.