Nerfs to 'passive play' traits- a possible solution to make the game mode more fun.

We've all been there: You see that one player at low health, wait for their cleanses to be used or have specifically watched for their stability/protection to wear off, and land your well-timed burst only to be met with their health barely having budged/condis suddenly cleansed. Whether it was warrior's Defy Pain trait shutting down your power damage, or mesmer's Mirror of Anguish automatically interrupting you as you throw in a CC, these traits are a pain to play against and often times punish skillful plays by the aggressor, requiring absolutely no skill by the trait-user.

Anet has made it clear that they don't intend on removing effects like these from the game, seeing as some of the new PoF runesets award life-saver effects simply for being hit at a certain health percentage. However, removal or reworking of these effects from traits would go a long ways for making the game more fun. Following, are some of the general trait patterns followed by general strategies that could be used to rework/balance these traits. Note that I'm focusing more on paradigm shift (changing how the trait works) rather than balance (tweaking percentages/damage):

When critically hit/ When struck/When inflicted by condition(s), chance to.... -type traits: Not all of these are necessarily bad for balance. The effect they provide can sometimes be a pillar of sustain for a build and usually have counter-play (such as dealing damage in bursts, or catching the target in an off-point location/in 1v1).

• A possible strategy to nerf these types of traits (if ever necessary) could be to tack the effects on to certain skills,
• Or, [trait effect] only stays active when striking (similar to Deadeye's Malice), because then at least you are required to actively sustain the trait's effects rather than use it as an ever-present crutch.

When struck below X% health-type traits: These can be quite tricky to balance as some of them are barely impactful at all (guardian's gain aegis at 50% health trait) whereas some of them are near absolute safety nets (warrior's Endure pain at 50% hp). Sometimes, as powerful as these traits are, a similar build would not perform nearly as well without said trait, so these traits shouldn't be removed completely.

• In my opinion, the devs have moved in the correct direction with the Defy Pain change/"nerf" this past balance patch: Reduce the power of the trait but also reduce its cooldown to balance. Similar traits should follow suite.
• Tack the effect on to an active skill. For example: When using a healing/elite skill below 50% health, activate [trait effect]. This promotes active play a lot more and could be a pretty valuable buff to certain traits.

When disabled (CCed), -type traits:These are by far the biggest offenders and can often times be pretty jarring to experience, ESPECIALLY the auto-stunbreaks. Changing these traits should be done more so on a case-by-case basis since these traits often take on the "flavor" of the class/specialization. Some possible changes:

• Change the trait such that it only takes effect if you negate (stability, dodge, block, invuln) the incoming disable: I think this type of change would work particularly well with Revenant's Eye for an Eye and mesmer's Mirror of Anguish since they both have some pretty neat ways to gain personal stability. It would also promote more active play, since you could throw on stability, go for a burst, and punish players who are just face-rolling (throwing CC out there without checking for stability).
• Change the trait to be "if struck when disabled, then [trait effect]": This could be a viable fix for some of these types of traits since opponents could decide when to proc your trait's effect in smaller-scale fights. This would be more of a 1v1 balance though I'll admit.
• Change the trait to "When breaking out of a disable, then [trait effect]": Similar to warrior's Rousing Resilience. This change may not work for all classes but once again is an option to reward active play.
• Change trait to "When disabled over X% health, then [trait effect]" : Opponents with knowledge of your build could once again decide when to proc your trait effect. This could also promote active play on the player's part if they have burst heals, as they could heal up right before a burst, and gain that trait effect.
• Change the trait to only take effect after the disable wears off. Example: Hunter's Determination on Dragonhunter could be changed to gain aegis when disabled, then lay a Shards of Faith trap only after the disable wears off/stunbreak is used.
• Make it conditional, i.e. "When disabled while under the effect of (boon/buff/effect), then [trait effect]" : This could really help retain the thematic element of the class and does more to promote active gameplay in smaller-scale fights.

The solution is simple, make utilies/skills does real damage, nerf all autos 1.

Gw2 has turned into a game based on traitline, because simply the best way to do damage is still autoatack boosted by passives, Aoes.In other games where there is no such problem, most classes have at most 3 passive, which serve only as a pretext for garnish as auras. The skills / utilities have great damage, so due to the cooldowns you have to learn to use them at the right time, the autos become only an accessory of the skills..However, that does not mean that I agree with most of these posts claiming "lack of skill" in the game. Most of them are fans of the 'ninja' playstyle, for these the game must be decided by dodges, jumps, or dancing like a ballerina, which is a style that not everyone likes. For these no one should have great defense or great attack, so the "smart ninja" can jump without punishment..Remove all passives, by leaving a maximum of 3 for each class, and give a 200%, 400% damage boost to the skills, making them worth it, end of story. You will have great skill options to adjust according to the rotation of your preference, so we have a game not too focused on traitlines, but on rotations.

i have said this before: turn all passives that activate certain skills or effects into special action key skills. you drop below 50% hp on your warrior? press special action key to activate endure pain. makes everything more skillful and actually lets you decide when you want to use those traits.

@ugrakarma.9416 said:The solution is simple, make utilies/skills does real damage, nerf all autos 1.

You have my Axe.

@Jekkt.6045 said:i have said this before: turn all passives that activate certain skills or effects into special action key skills. you drop below 50% hp on your warrior? press special action key to activate endure pain. makes everything more skillful and actually lets you decide when you want to use those traits.

A good thought, but what about when you have multiple effects that trigger on such situations? Special Action Hotkey is only 1 and can't handle all of them.

Remove all passive invulns, all passive stealth applications, and all passive "heal when you take a killing blow" traits. These are awful for balance and never should have been put in the game in the first place.

I agree with some of those changes, but essentially the design of those types of traits as they currently stand are unhealthy and unfun.

@Mikuchan.7261 said:

@Jekkt.6045 said:i have said this before: turn all passives that activate certain skills or effects into special action key skills. you drop below 50% hp on your warrior? press special action key to activate endure pain. makes everything more skillful and actually lets you decide when you want to use those traits.

priority traits, like grandmaster over master etc. on stun would be active for only a few seconds anyway. if that doesn't work just add a 2nd special action key. i'm sure a good solution could be found in qa testing.

@Jekkt.6045 said:

@Mikuchan.7261 said:

@Jekkt.6045 said:i have said this before: turn all passives that activate certain skills or effects into special action key skills. you drop below 50% hp on your warrior? press special action key to activate endure pain. makes everything more skillful and actually lets you decide when you want to use those traits.

I dont think thats a good idea imho at all @Jekkt.6045I have discussed this on my own thread, but to make it short lets take ''defy pain'' for warriors as an example. What I would like it to do instead is to make ''endure the pain'' have two charges but make its base duration shorter or make its base cooldown longer.

I dont know what you think, but I'd say thats an easier change to implement and a more fun active interaction to use, and much less frustrating to play against.

@OriOri.8724 said:Remove all passive invulns, all passive stealth applications, and all passive "heal when you take a killing blow" traits. These are awful for balance and never should have been put in the game in the first place.

Such a move would distort balance beyond recognition. I would like to see trapper runes lose the stealth application. That's just too much power, especially in the case of trap DH.

@tsuyosugiru.7634 said:

@Jekkt.6045 said:

@Mikuchan.7261 said:

@Jekkt.6045 said:i have said this before: turn all passives that activate certain skills or effects into special action key skills. you drop below 50% hp on your warrior? press special action key to activate endure pain. makes everything more skillful and actually lets you decide when you want to use those traits.

or just give it the 2nd charge once you hit that 50% hp mark. but that would require you to slot the skill, you know. with the special action key route you could make use of it even if endure pain is not on your skillbar.

@Ithilwen.1529 said:

@OriOri.8724 said:Remove all passive invulns, all passive stealth applications, and all passive "heal when you take a killing blow" traits. These are awful for balance and never should have been put in the game in the first place.

"Such a move" is the only way to get a hope of true balance. Passives that strong are fundamentally broken.

I would like to see a buff icon when these defensive passive trait is not in CD.

This would help a lot. Currently you kinda have to assume the target has the defensive trait up and play around it.

@Exciton.8942 said:I would like to see a buff icon when these defensive passive trait is not in CD.

This would help a lot. Currently you kinda have to assume the target has the defensive trait up and play around it.

Now that's not a bad idea. It could be something like the icon when a Mesmer has mantras prepped.

@Exciton.8942 said:I would like to see a buff icon when these defensive passive trait is not in CD.

This would help a lot. Currently you kinda have to assume the target has the defensive trait up and play around it.

That would help a little I suppose, but the underlying issue with these traits is fundementally unhealthy. An icon like you're proposing would be a start, but a radical change down the line needs to happen in relation to these traits in order to make them active, OR completely remove them and redesign new traits that can complement existing builds or push towards new ones.