Offensive auto cast abilities.

The balance team has provided a preview of skill splits coming for WvW and PvP most noticeably increasing the cool downs on defensive auto cast skills across the board as well as a general reduction in power and healing from the most common classes at the moment and some cool down increases. https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/29690/pvp-wvw-skill-split-release#latest

However what about the offensive auto cast abilities? As far as I can see these aren't being touched and are not seeing any direct changes to a lot of the skills themselves. Many times these skills are equally not very fun to play against as you have to keep a clock running in your head as to whether the effect will go off or even if it's equipped at all and is as unfun to play against as many defensive auto cast abilities due to no real warning it's going to happen a lot of the time.

First off I should clarify what I mean by an offensive auto cast. For me these are traits where it uses a skill on the enemy at a certain health threshold or on crit but generally have pretty powerful effects and 10-20s cool downs, I also count auto cast immobilise as a powerful offensive skill as it can be a death sentence. I don't classify traits where a skill is cast reliably on using another skill as that is an effect that will always happen upon user input of that skill nor do I find on crit effects that have really short ICDs on them that bad, like burn on crit for 1s on a 3s ICD as they're designed for condition builds to use more offensive stats to keep up condition pressure.

Examples:Chill of Death: Cast Lesser Spinal Shivers on a foe when attacking them while their health is below the threshold. 20s ICDAim-Assisted Rocket: Striking a foe occasionally tags it for a seeker rocket. 10s ICDRadiant Fire: Gain Zealot's Flame when you critically hit an enemy. Burning you inflict has increased duration, and your torch skills gain reduced recharge. 10s ICDSpontaneous Destruction: Use Lesser Banish Enchantment when striking a foe that has boons equal to or greater than the threshold. 25s ICDBeastly Warden: Beast abilities taunt nearby foes.Cull the Weak: Increases damage to weakened foes. Striking a foe below the health threshold inflicts weakness.Panic Strike: Immobilizing a foe poisons them. Striking a foe that is below the health threshold immobilizes them. 20s ICDSuperior Elements: Dual Attack skills weaken enemies. Attacks against weakened foes have increased critical chance. 10s ICDLost Time: Gain a charge each time you score a critical hit. After enough charges, your next hit will slow your target and deal bonus damage. - no ICD technically but it's effectively 100% uptime slow on crit

The examples above are not exhaustive and I've tried to get one from each class (warrior and mes traits have the most consistent effects with thief being not far behind), this is not me saying they're overpowered, weak or whatever, just examples of traits where an effect is automatically cast without much control over whether it goes off or indication it will happen. They are also not usually linked to a skill or class of skill either.

What I'd like is to see these types of traits linked to using a certain skill or class of skill or changed to enhance what they cast instead. So for instance Chill of Death instead of casting lesser spinal shivers it might make axe and focus skills remove a boon on hit.

Incidentally if you look at the list of traits most traits are doing so many effects it's almost unrecognisable from the state of the game before the specialisation update.

Not all of them are that bad. A bit of variety never hurt. Low cooldown (10s) with damage over time or debuff conditions is acceptable. The higher cooldowns with soft or hard CC or large direct damage need changed.

Spinal Shivers has the large direct damage problem.Panic Strike adds a fairly strong CC proc on a burst class, so I'd consider changing it.Cull the Weak is consistent and it's just a damage bonus, which spreads out the damage from this trait over time.Superior Elements only triggers on certain skills and the damage is spread out.I'm surprised you left off Ancient Seeds, which is one of the most annoying procs.

@Exedore.6320 said:Not all of them are that bad. A bit of variety never hurt. Low cooldown (10s) with damage over time or debuff conditions is acceptable. The higher cooldowns with soft or hard CC or large direct damage need changed.

Spinal Shivers has the large direct damage problem.Panic Strike adds a fairly strong CC proc on a burst class, so I'd consider changing it.Cull the Weak is consistent and it's just a damage bonus, which spreads out the damage from this trait over time.Superior Elements only triggers on certain skills and the damage is spread out.I'm surprised you left off Ancient Seeds, which is one of the most annoying procs.

Yeah the list isn't there to be completely scrutinised over what wasn't added or left out, it's there as a broad list of examples.

Cull the weak is an example of a strong debilitating condition that can be kept up 100% of the time below 50% without much input.Superior Elements is an example of that debilitating condition being applied randomly half the time because of it's ICD.Yeah Ancient seeds is a great example of another, likewise technically mental defense can fall into offensive category now that iDefender can do so much damage.

Yeah, there's also arcane precision rng when you have 33% chance on a crit chance.

@Exedore.6320 said:Panic Strike adds a fairly strong CC proc on a burst class, so I'd consider changing it.I'm surprised you left off Ancient Seeds, which is one of the most annoying procs.

imho Panic Strike, Ancient Seeds, and Refined Toxins are probably the worst offenders when it comes to high impact passives.

Hey now. necro's need these traits. CoDAlready lost most without compensation.I even would go as far as say: The boon strip on that trait was out compensation.