Critical Chance(Condi)/ Watch towers/ Downstate

[darkwarrior.1670]

Hello fellow WvW players, as many of you already know the big patch is soon to arrive. As some of us fear condition/tank meta's might be making a comeback, and bring us back to the times of Heart of Thorns. I'll be making three suggestions to Anet to consider changing for WvW. I think that critical chance should affect the amount of stacks condition builds apply. Ill use Revenant Axe 3 skill Echoing Eruption as an example of what I mean. The skill currently does the following.

Leap at your foe and deliver a massive attack that cascades outwards. Each attack area is a blast finisher.Damage: 367 (1.0)?4 Torment (8s): 704 Damage, 1018 Damage if MovingWeakness (3s): -50% Endurance Regeneration, 50% Fumble (Unrestricted)Number of Impacts: 3Number of Targets: 3Radius: 180Combo Finisher: BlastRange: 1,200

As you can see the default stacks of torment is 4 lasting 8 seconds. If properly geared this duration can go up to 16 secs just on this condition alone. This is at less than 20% critical chance, I think the default should be 1 stack of torment lasting 5 seconds (if low condition duration). If you have high critical chance you should be able to stack more than one stack. If you're at 100% critical chance you should be able to get to the 16 stacks of torment that got applied to me earlier by someone having close to zero critical chance. This will make players have to risk some health and armor to get those nice condition bursts. Just something to think about

Watchtower tactic: I think the radius of this tactic needs to be lowered to just cover the tower, allowing certain towers to be hit without being spotted. Ill use north east tower in alpine borderlands as an example. Theres no way you can cata that tower without being hit by watch tower. Lowering the radius will also allow roamers to go for these towers, and force people to actually have to scout like we used to.

Finally Downstate: Downstate needs to be toned down in regards to health when in downstate. Also in WvW I feel everyone should have a similar skill option when in downstate. Everyone should have an auto attack skill, and a rez skill. There should be no CC, tele, mist, etc skills when in downstate in WvW. Also PLEASSEEEEE get rid of the 1 second invulnerable period when entering down state

[darkwarrior.1670]

I forgot to mention that running trailblazers should be the same as a power user running wanderer's or soldiers

[lodjur.1284]

@"darkwarrior.1670" said:Hello fellow WvW players, as many of you already know the big patch is soon to arrive. As some of us fear condition/tank meta's might be making a comeback, and bring us back to the times of Heart of Thorns. I'll be making three suggestions to Anet to consider changing for WvW. I think that critical chance should affect the amount of stacks condition builds apply. Ill use Revenant Axe 3 skill Echoing Eruption as an example of what I mean. The skill currently does the following.

There never actually was a condition/tank meta, there's just been varying levels of power dominance. Condi has infact never been more common than power, which is what would be needed to classify it as a "condi meta".

If there ever comes a "condi meta" you can just doublebar cleansing, slap on antitoxin runes and laugh at it.

Leap at your foe and deliver a massive attack that cascades outwards. Each attack area is a blast finisher.Damage: 367 (1.0)?4 Torment (8s): 704 Damage, 1018 Damage if MovingWeakness (3s): -50% Endurance Regeneration, 50% Fumble (Unrestricted)Number of Impacts: 3Number of Targets: 3Radius: 180Combo Finisher: BlastRange: 1,200

As you can see the default stacks of torment is 4 lasting 8 seconds. If properly geared this duration can go up to 16 secs just on this condition alone. This is at less than 20% critical chance, I think the default should be 1 stack of torment lasting 5 seconds (if low condition duration). If you have high critical chance you should be able to stack more than one stack. If you're at 100% critical chance you should be able to get to the 16 stacks of torment that got applied to me earlier by someone having close to zero critical chance. This will make players have to risk some health and armor to get those nice condition bursts. Just something to think about

That's actually revenant mace 3, they don't have mainhand axe. Condi revenant is rather uncommon atm and already lacks damage options.

Condi needs to be tankier to survive while the conditions do dmg and conditions can be cleared after they're applied. They're lowering the burst potential for condi a lot.

Trailblazer is only a problem when used on builds with absurd amounts of evades and high mobility. Meaning historically mirage, condi chrono, condi daredevil etc.

It doesn't feel problematic on slow classes like revenant, necro etc, in fact it is necessary for those kind of builds to survive in WvW. Don't nuke low mobility classes due to high mobility ones being broken.

Watchtower tactic: I think the radius of this tactic needs to be lowered to just cover the tower, allowing certain towers to be hit without being spotted. Ill use north east tower in alpine borderlands as an example. Theres no way you can cata that tower without being hit by watch tower. Lowering the radius will also allow roamers to go for these towers, and force people to actually have to scout like we used to.

Just delete watchtower.

Finally Downstate: Downstate needs to be toned down in regards to health when in downstate. Also in WvW I feel everyone should have a similar skill option when in downstate. Everyone should have an auto attack skill, and a rez skill. There should be no CC, tele, mist, etc skills when in downstate in WvW. Also PLEASSEEEEE get rid of the 1 second invulnerable period when entering down state

Yes, so very much yes. Also you really should split these kinds suggestions up as the 3 are unrelated.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Delete downstate. Delete Watchtower. Condi builds typically have an inflict xyz condition on crit trait.

[Sviel.7493]

If NET ABL can't be cata'd without hitting Watchtower, it is the only tower on the borderlands for which that is true. Thus, the problem is not with Watchtower generally but with NET ABL.

On that count, I agree with you. Careful sieging from a long distance should be able to evade Watchtower. But if that's just a stand-in for trying to nerf it all around, then I disagree. It allows players who invest time in defending something the ability to get more information. It doesn't defend your towers for you, but it does mean you can go flip that North Fire Shrine that's been bugging you without missing the enemy zerg sneaking into NNC.

If any changes were made to it generally, I would say it should be destroyable. That way, if you siege at a safe distance, you can also take it out so you're not discovered when you run in.