Can we please get an extra PvE only effect for Winds of Disenchantment?

I'm loving Spellbreaker so far, much more than I thought I would in PvE (I was already fairly impressed for PvP and WvW after the beta weekend). That said, my one big issue in PvE is that Winds of Disenchantment is pretty much completely useless. I love the skill and its effect and really WANT to be able to use it in more situations - it deserves to be shone like a giant golden light bulb of delicious design, that shouts "I am a Spellbreaker and I am beautiful" to the players around you, but there's just no reason to ever use it (again, specifically talking about PvE). Could we please get SOME beneficial effect for PvE that makes us have some reason to pick it over Signet of Rage for the 5th year in a row?

Some suggestions off the top of my head are (and these can be PvE only! It's pretty decent as is in PvP/WvW):

• A pulsing 0.2s daze every second for synergy with existing traits and usefulness for smashing through breakbars (worth taking in Raids too)
• Apply damage every second like the Harpies who use a red variant of this skill do in Desert Highlands (if crits on these hits could proc boons/condis on hit from weapon/traits etc, this would be great too)
• Gives self 100% crit rate while inside the area due to the extra clarity of removing all the lingering magic in that area (see, it even works with lore, and it'd be a big buff to Power Warrior DPS!)

Just... something, anything that makes it also worthy of being an Elite skill in PvE. It'd be such a shame to let such an awesome skill go to waste for the most popular type of content in GW2.

I'm sure you guys have plenty of better ideas than mine so please share them too!

Theres this ugly pulsating blue/purple epileptic circle whenever I'm the caster of the skill, can we get rid of that too please? Normal friendly AoEs are white circles, theres something about this skill that makes it blue and purple

@kKagari.6804 said:Theres this ugly pulsating blue/purple epileptic circle whenever I'm the caster of the skill, can we get rid of that too please? Normal friendly AoEs are white circles, theres something about this skill that makes it blue and purple

Hah, I hadn't noticed that until now but now I can't unsee it. Thanks a lot. :(

I'm surprised that there aren't way more boons on npcs in the new pve areas. I assumed there would be, so I can see why you want something that makes the skill more useful there.

@Phantom.7903 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:Theres this ugly pulsating blue/purple epileptic circle whenever I'm the caster of the skill, can we get rid of that too please? Normal friendly AoEs are white circles, theres something about this skill that makes it blue and purple

Mwahaha! Feast your eyes on it!

@Choppy.4183 said:I'm surprised that there aren't way more boons on npcs in the new pve areas. I assumed there would be, so I can see why you want something that makes the skill more useful there.I agree.In fact i have always thought (even back in core) that the lack of PvE enemy boons was odd.. Surprised they did not tweak all enemies at some point to give off certain boons in later areas. Might be too much work now...Although its pretty nice against the few enemies which seem to have constant protection on.

It's been nearly a year and trash Harpy mobs still have a stronger version of this "Elite" skill than the player character, who's absorbed the magical energy from unstable Ley anomalies, Bloodstone residue, has a link to a dragon that ate the magic of some seriously powerful entities in Tyrian history, and fought alongside the Sunspears themselves, the precursors to the Spellbreakers. Why???

If it doesn't warrant a (PvE only) buff, then can we at least get a reason as to why? Just give us some reason to use Winds of Disenchantment in PvE please.

As improbable as it is, what we really need is sweeping changes to PvE where mobs use Boons to the same degree that players do in order to give anti-Boon mechanics a reason to exist outside of PvP.

@Oglaf.1074 said:As improbable as it is, what we really need is sweeping changes to PvE where mobs use Boons to the same degree that players do in order to give anti-Boon mechanics a reason to exist outside of PvP.

Would be cool for a select few of classes, but playing Elementalist and Engi won't be very fun. The Awakened already do this to some extent and I don't believe we have to go further than that. They give themselves protection and might and another boon I don't quite remember.

Having an elite not be useful outside of certain situations is fine too. I certainly wouldn't want to drop it on normal mobs

Well, it isn’t all about the WoD really. It is anti-Boobs mechanics in general. Spellbreaker in general would be more fun and interesting if you could use it “proper” in PvE wouldn’t you say?

Having regular mobs use more boons like players do would be good for both spellbreaker utility as well as necromancer utility/damage. This should have been added a very long time ago. AN gave us the tools but in 1 of 3 game modes they are completely pointless, and from a combat perspective it makes no sense.

@Khailyn.6248 said:Having regular mobs use more boons like players do would be good for both spellbreaker utility as well as necromancer utility/damage. This should have been added a very long time ago. AN gave us the tools but in 1 of 3 game modes they are completely pointless, and from a combat perspective it makes no sense.

As mentioned Anet kinda realized this with PoF and started having some Awakened use Boons (not Boobs as the damnable auto-correct put in my above reply, lol) but it is not nearly enough to make an anti-Boon focus viable (and core Tyria and HoT still don’t really have any significant Boonage still).

ANet has said that the only splits across game mode will be numerical. All the effects must necessarily be the same in all modes. For example, if [Abracadabra] transforms target into a rabbit, causing 5 stacks of confusion, then:+1: Split, for PvE: 10 stacks of confusion, for PvP: 5 stacks, for WvW: 7 stacks:-1: Split: for PvE also causes 5 stacks of torment.

So look at the current effects of [WoD] and figure out which ones would be worth boosting (numerically) in PvE to make it worthy (in your opinion) of its elite status. Or figure out something that allows a new effect that won't make the skill even more OP in WvW than it already appears.

FYI there are some PvE fights for which the boon-denial and missile-denial features are really helpful.

But in tha case there are far shorter cooldown, thus more reliable, options. You’re not going to be using WoD on Matthias, for example.

You can use them in fractals. Other than that I would pick another elite.

It's a lightning field so if your party needs to break a breakbar it is alright.

@Oglaf.1074 said:

@Khailyn.6248 said:Having regular mobs use more boons like players do would be good for both spellbreaker utility as well as necromancer utility/damage. This should have been added a very long time ago. AN gave us the tools but in 1 of 3 game modes they are completely pointless, and from a combat perspective it makes no sense.

I think all we can do is keep pushing to expand on this in all areas of the game. Hell, even just out of the starting zones we should see mobs with 1 boon so players can learn to deal with them. Harpies getting might or fury, ettins with protection, ogres with regeneration, moa with swiftness etc. I'll keep pushing for this as I dont know how else to address it.

Not all classes have access to boon rip though. Heck war only has boonrip because of sb. Eles, guardis, and rangers would be disadvantaded in pve (especially if they're playing power builds) if mobs started generating boons. Either that or the boons won't matter whether they have them or not.

I'd like to see my ability to strip boons be useful outside of a few very small cases that we have now.

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:ANet has said that the only splits across game mode will be numerical. All the effects must necessarily be the same in all modes. For example, if [Abracadabra] transforms target into a rabbit, causing 5 stacks of confusion, then:+1: Split, for PvE: 10 stacks of confusion, for PvP: 5 stacks, for WvW: 7 stacks:-1: Split: for PvE also causes 5 stacks of torment.

So look at the current effects of [WoD] and figure out which ones would be worth boosting (numerically) in PvE to make it worthy (in your opinion) of its elite status. Or figure out something that allows a new effect that won't make the skill even more OP in WvW than it already appears.

FYI there are some PvE fights for which the boon-denial and missile-denial features are really helpful.

Thanks for the insight, I was completely unaware that this was the case!

I agree that the "right" solution is to add Boons to all mobs but that's a massive, unrealistic undertaking for anything but a major PvE/combat revamp.

I still think that WoD could use a buff that doesn't impact WvW too heavily quite easily. WoD is only OP because of how it scales vs a zerg, so buffs limited to the caster shouldn't encounter the same massive scaling. Something like "grants caster x Ferocity/Power/Precision/% dmg bonus (so those weird SB condi builds can benefit too) while in the area", maybe even additionally requiring "when attacking an enemy with no boons".

Honestly, I'll take anything at this point - it doesn't have to be as strong as the others for standard PvE usecases but I'd like something other than flat out useless for 75% of the game.

@Oglaf.1074 said:Well, it isn’t all about the WoD really. It is anti-Boobs mechanics in general. Spellbreaker in general would be more fun and interesting if you could use it “proper” in PvE wouldn’t you say?

I will never support anti-Boobs mechanics! In fact, I love stripping them! Free the nip!

@Sephylon.4938 said:Not all classes have access to boon rip though. Heck war only has boonrip because of sb. Eles, guardis, and rangers would be disadvantaded in pve (especially if they're playing power builds) if mobs started generating boons. Either that or the boons won't matter whether they have them or not.

It would only be a problem if boons were purely additive. Having them balanced with boons in mind creates a similar baseline, but adds weaknesses if you can play on those boons or conditions. The types of boons they have shapes the kind of counter play better then the typical Power/Condi weakness we use now.... but the classes have to have those options (at some level) in Core, so all builds have something woven into them. Like how Modrem are vulnerable to various CCs effects, and most classes has at least one skill in most builds to apply it. For builds which lack the counter, its mostly just working around them for a more difficult fight.... but not impossible.

You're also forgetting the number of traits which give bonus damage for targets with boons, something all classes could take advantage of without having boon rip as a mechanic. Looking at conditions to have more direct counterplay to specific boons is another option. Its sort of like this now, just that we simply pile them on too much in every game mode to really notice the difference.

@"Phantom.7903" said:I'm loving Spellbreaker so far, much more than I thought I would in PvE (I was already fairly impressed for PvP and WvW after the beta weekend). That said, my one big issue in PvE is that Winds of Disenchantment is pretty much completely useless. I love the skill and its effect and really WANT to be able to use it in more situations - it deserves to be shone like a giant golden light bulb of delicious design, that shouts "I am a Spellbreaker and I am beautiful" to the players around you, but there's just no reason to ever use it (again, specifically talking about PvE). Could we please get SOME beneficial effect for PvE that makes us have some reason to pick it over Signet of Rage for the 5th year in a row?

Some suggestions off the top of my head are (and these can be PvE only! It's pretty decent as is in PvP/WvW):

• A pulsing 0.2s daze every second for synergy with existing traits and usefulness for smashing through breakbars (worth taking in Raids too)
• Apply damage every second like the Harpies who use a red variant of this skill do in Desert Highlands (if crits on these hits could proc boons/condis on hit from weapon/traits etc, this would be great too)
• Gives self 100% crit rate while inside the area due to the extra clarity of removing all the lingering magic in that area (see, it even works with lore, and it'd be a big buff to Power Warrior DPS!)

Just... something, anything that makes it also worthy of being an Elite skill in PvE. It'd be such a shame to let such an awesome skill go to waste for the most popular type of content in GW2.

I'm sure you guys have plenty of better ideas than mine so please share them too!

Once they added more synergy to this skill , you might start asking to lower the cool down in PVE, and so on ..

This skill is not just remove boons( let me remind u ), it also destroy all projectiles on impact. So it's more useful than u expect.It can be used to clear a large group of elite mobs (like a bunch of aetherblade dudes , dredges , or lava elemental in volcanic fractal) , block slug's attack in raid (when your teammate is down and need some cover to res them while slubling's attacking). or block the ice elemental's projectile in snowblind fractal.

Anet make this skill as a solution for specific situation, so I'm sure you can find more chance to use it as long as u keep an eye on the situation you encounter in PVE,And If you only seek to improve dps , then let me tell you.. your full counter is the key point to maintain high dps.

Enjoy

@Phantom.7903 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:Theres this ugly pulsating blue/purple epileptic circle whenever I'm the caster of the skill, can we get rid of that too please? Normal friendly AoEs are white circles, theres something about this skill that makes it blue and purple

Its because its a lightningfield. Combo with projectiles in it and you stun. Jump into it and gain shock aura. Its also why all guardian fields have yellow outlinings vecause they are lightfields.

Pulsing dmg would not be to shabby. It could be implemented in all modes to keep the skill consistent but the dmg could be far greater in PvE.

Once they added more synergy to this skill , you might start asking to lower the cool down in PVE, and so on ..

This skill is not just remove boons( let me remind u ), it also destroy all projectiles on impact. So it's more useful than u expect.It can be used to clear a large group of elite mobs (like a bunch of aetherblade dudes , dredges , or lava elemental in volcanic fractal) , block slug's attack in raid (when your teammate is down and need some cover to res them while slubling's attacking). or block the ice elemental's projectile in snowblind fractal.

Anet make this skill as a solution for specific situation, so I'm sure you can find more chance to use it as long as u keep an eye on the situation you encounter in PVE,And If you only seek to improve dps , then let me tell you.. your full counter is the key point to maintain high dps.

Enjoy

I'm not asking for power creep, I'm asking for it to feel like an impactful cast that's worth waiting 90s for, which, in PvE, it currently simply isn't.

I realise it can stop projectiles but this is actually reducing synergy - most Spellbreaker builds are melee Power builds which means we're already in the middle of enemies. Yes, there may be additional mobs outside dropping projectiles in at us, but as you stated, Full Counter is the key to high DPS as Spellbreaker, and using projectiles to trigger it is one of the easiest ways to get a free cast out. The cases you've stated are WAY too situational... Signet, Banner, Headbutt, Rampage can all contribute in a useful way in every fight, in all 3 modes. That's the baseline I wish WoD would meet.

Its because its a lightningfield. Combo with projectiles in it and you stun. Jump into it and gain shock aura. Its also why all guardian fields have yellow outlinings vecause they are lightfields.

Pulsing dmg would not be to shabby. It could be implemented in all modes to keep the skill consistent but the dmg could be far greater in PvE.

Interesting, I didn't know that - frankly, I don't think the outline colour is ever going to be what I use as the indicator of what element the field is but good to know.

The combo effects of Lightning fields are a little weaker than what you've stated though - projectiles and whirl finishers apply vulnerability, leap applies daze, and blast applies area swiftness (see https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lightning_field). Stun on projectiles would be hilariously strong. :joy:

I just wanted to pop in and agree. There’s no reason the defining skill in a elite spec should be almost useless in most PvE. They need to give winds a PvE buff